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Technologies for Underwater Wireless Communication

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 June 2026 | Viewed by 659

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Fondazione Ugo Bordoni (FUB), Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, 00144 Rome, Italy
Interests: Internet of Things; LoRa; underwater acoustic communications; visible-light communications; Li-Fi; underwater optical communications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electrical Information and Telecommunications Engineering, University of Rome, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy
Interests: wireless optical communications; underwater communications; ultra wide band communications for medical applications; cognitive radio; power line communications; indoor positioning; smart grids and energy management; satellite systems; heterogeneous wireless networks; physical layer security; devices for tyres control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The exploration of the underwater world has always represented a major goal for researchers and scientists. However, more recently, knowledge of and access to this environment have become a necessity in developing communication infrastructures to support civil, commercial, and military activities.

For many years, the scientific community has been working on underwater communications, not only developing solutions related to hardware and software but also, above all, working to define a framework of technologies and rules to ensure robust connectivity in this very challenging propagation scenario.

Wireless acoustics, magnetic induction, and, more recently, optical communication have represented the research directions of greatest interest. The work carried out in these areas is converging towards the achievement of the so-called Internet of Underwater Things paradigm, in which efficient traffic management will constitute a key challenge. In this regard, machine learning and artificial intelligence are expected to provide crucial support.

This Special Issue will showcase papers introducing novel solutions related to underwater communications. Topics of interest range from signal propagation to networking, including the following areas:

  • Modulation, coding, and detection techniques;
  • Channel characterization and equalization;
  • Medium access control and routing strategies;
  • Security in underwater communication;
  • Internet of Underwater Things;
  • Underwater device and component design.

Dr. Andrea Petroni
Dr. Mauro Biagi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • underwater communication
  • underwater networks
  • underwater communication protocols
  • Internet of Underwater Things
  • underwater optical communication
  • underwater acoustic communication
  • underwater channel modeling

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 9316 KB  
Article
FRFT and Cyclic Prefix Refinement for Coarse-to-Fine Doppler Estimation in Coded OFDM Underwater Acoustic Communications
by Bo Wei, Shihao Xuan, Siyu Xing and Yanting Yu
Appl. Sci. 2026, 16(10), 4633; https://doi.org/10.3390/app16104633 - 8 May 2026
Viewed by 250
Abstract
In underwater acoustic (UWA) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, the orthogonality among subcarriers is highly susceptible to Doppler-induced scaling, leading to severe inter-carrier interference (ICI). This paper proposes a coarse-to-fine Doppler estimation approach for coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems operating [...] Read more.
In underwater acoustic (UWA) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, the orthogonality among subcarriers is highly susceptible to Doppler-induced scaling, leading to severe inter-carrier interference (ICI). This paper proposes a coarse-to-fine Doppler estimation approach for coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems operating in underwater acoustic (UWA) channels. The proposed method first employs the fractional Fourier transform (FRFT) to obtain an initial Doppler factor estimate from a linear frequency modulation (LFM) probe, exploiting the energy concentration property of chirp signals in the fractional domain. This coarse estimate then guides a refinement stage that leverages the cyclic prefix (CP) inherent to each OFDM symbol, enabling symbol-by-symbol Doppler tracking without waiting for the entire packet. As a result, the required memory and processing latency are substantially lower than with full-packet resampling or iterative gradient-descent alternatives. Numerical simulations conducted under both time-invariant and time-variant Doppler conditions demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves a mean squared error (MSE) below 0.5% at signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) of 5 dB and above. Moreover, the bit error rate (BER) remains within 0.2 dB of an ideal Doppler-free system at a BER of 10−3. The combination of low storage demand, symbol-level operation, and robust performance makes the proposed method well-suited for real-time underwater acoustic communication. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technologies for Underwater Wireless Communication)
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