Implementation and application of underwater acoustic sensor nodes

Underwater sensing is envisioned using inexpensive underwater sensor nodes distributed over a wide area, deployed close to the bottom, and networked through underwater acoustic communications. In this paper, an underwater acoustic sensor node to perform the underwater sensing is designed and implemented. Specifically, we describe the design criteria, architecture and functional modules of underwater acoustic sensor node. Moreover, we give the experiment results of ocean current field estimation using the designed underwater acoustic sensor nodes at the sea area of Liuheng, Zhoushan, China.