CORPORATE KEYNOTE SERIES

M. Reza Alam

(Researcher, TAF lab, University of Berkley, USA)

Bio : Born in Yazd, a small historic city at the geographic center of Iran, Reza received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering and MSc in Applied Mechanics from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. He then joined the Mechanical Engineering program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. He received his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 2005, Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 2008, and then served as a Postdoctoral associate (2008-2009) and Lecturer (2009-2011) at MIT. In July 2011 Reza joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley.

Title For Talk: Underwater Wireless Communication through a Swarm of Super-Agile Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Abstract: Underwater Wireless Data Communication is one of the most important outstanding problems in ocean engineering, hindering research expeditions and industrial developments. The reason is simple: Electromagnetic waves, at any frequency, are heavily absorbed by water, and, Acoustic waves (Sonar) have narrow bandwidths. Lack of underwater wireless communication has left our oceans mostly unexplored. In this presentation, I will delve into our endeavor to tackle this challenge through the use of a swarm of small-size Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) that relay a laser beam (data carrier) from the seabed to the surface of the ocean. Our AUVs will be lined up at distances less than the maximum range of the laser, then Each AUV will receive the signal from the one below, amplify the signal, and send it to the next one on the top until the signal reaches the station on the surface where it can easily reach satellites (via RF) and hence anywhere in the world. To keep the communication line reliable, particularly against oceanic disturbances due to surface waves, internal waves, oceanic currents, and marine life, a supervised deep learner is designed to quantify patterns in the background disturbance, based on which an optimal network topology for distribution of our drones is calculated such that reliability in smooth communication is maximized.