The development of small, cheap AUVs offers a plethora of applications for underwater inshore monitoring. For online reporting and controlling as well as swarm interaction, communication is required. We present a prototype of an acoustic modem that is (i) small enough to be carried by small-sized AUVs in the sub 10 L class, (ii) consumes little enough energy to not diminish operation times of its host, (iii) comes at a much lesser unit cost than commercial solutions. Our evaluation indicates that communication is reliable at distances up to 43 m and beyond.
['Christian Renner', 'Alexander J. Golkowski', 'Erik Maehle']
Poster: Affordable Acoustic Modem for Small-Sized Autonomous Underwater Vehicles