What can you do with 50,000 hydrophones?
The ocean is huge, deep and impenetrable to electromagnetic waves, at least beyond a few tens of metres. Sound is the primary means by which everything is sensed and communicated, and this applies as much for robotic systems as for the animals that live there. Yet hydrophones are expensive both to make and deploy, and our ability to listen is consequently greatly restricted in time and spatial resolution. But now, with Distributed Acoustic Sensing, even legacy optic fibres, of which there are over 1 million km, can be converted into tens of thousands of virtual hydrophones. Is this a game-changer? What are the main benefits and constraints on this exciting new technology, and what might it be used for in the near future? The technology is developing rapidly, with an exponential growth in research and publications over the past few years. This presentation will cover some of the challenges and emerging uses, including a new one-way communication channel for underwater robotic systems – the first new physical underwater wireless communication channel to be developed in decades.