Faculty/School

Faculty of Engineering

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Primary Supervisor

Associate Professor Dhammika Jayalath
Position
Associate Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Engineering

External supervisors

  • Dr Robby McKilliam, Whipbird Signals
  • Prof. Vaughan Clarkson, Whipbird Signals

Overview

Communication is an enabling technology for underwater systems such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), sensor networks, and diver support equipment. These systems cannot use radio frequency (RF) links, because radio waves are heavily absorbed by water, and poor visibility rules out optical links. Only acoustic communication is suitable. The underwater acoustic channel is bandwidth-limited, slow, and degraded by multipath, Doppler, and noise, making underwater modems a demanding signal processing and embedded systems problem.

Commercial underwater modems exist but are expensive and closed-source, with prices ranging into the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. This cost and lack of openness hampers their use in affordable products and research. Such cost is acceptable for high-end naval, offshore, and scientific platforms, but not for low-cost, small-scale, or expendable systems deployed in large numbers.
Motivated by this, this project will study and build an AHOI underwater acoustic modem, an open-source, low-power modem developed at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH).

Research engagement

The project will suit students interested in one or more of:

  • acoustic and underwater channel modelling
  • digital signal processing and modulation/demodulation,
    RF and analog front-end (amplifier, filter, transducer) design
  • embedded hardware design,
    embedded software in C and assembly (STM32 / ARM Cortex-M)
  • communication protocol design (MAC, ranging, and routing)
  • continuous integration and test driven development systems.

Research activities

Embedded hardware design and communications protocol dsign

Research skills

Accoustic  underwater communications.

Outcomes

Build an AHOI underwater acoustic modem, an open-source, low-power modem developed at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH).

Skills and experience

Signal Processing, Telecomunications, embedded systems

Start date

2 November, 2026

End date

19 February, 2027

Location

Whipbird Signals Pty Ltd, 1/29 Main St, Samford Village QLD 4520

Keywords

Contact

Dhammika Jayalath

31388034

Dhammika.Jayalath@qut.edu.au