Underwater Wireless Communication Systems and Networks: A Survey and Future Directions – An APEGS Webinar

Event Summary

Underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) have gained increasing attention for civil and defense applications, but underwater environments present major challenges such as dynamic channels, localization difficulties, high delays, limited bandwidth, energy constraints, interference, and strong noise. This work presents a comprehensive survey of UWSN protocols across the physical, MAC, and routing layers, including existing network stacks, underwater modems, and security threats, with emphasis on the Smart Adaptive Long- and Short-range Acoustic (SALSA) stack.

Based on the identified research gaps, two main contributions are proposed. First, Developed-SALSA (D-SALSA) stack protocols are introduced to improve adaptability, energy efficiency, throughput, and communication reliability. Second, a heterogeneous underwater architecture combining acoustic and optical communication technologies is presented to support high-rate and large-scale data transmission.

Presenter

Abdallah Ghazy, Engineer-In-Training, received a B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Al-Azhar University in 2007, an M.Sc. degree from Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology in 2016, and a Ph.D. degree from McMaster University in 2021. He worked in telecommunications in Egypt from 2008 to 2017 and served as a teaching assistant at McMaster University and Al-Azhar University from 2012 to 2021. He was a research fellow at École de technologie supérieure from 2021 to 2025 and a research associate at Calian Group from 2025 to 2026. His research interests include telecommunications, signal processing, and machine learning.

Who Should Attend

Researchers, engineers, and students in electrical and computer engineering from both industry and academic backgrounds.