Recent Advances and Future Directions on Underwater Wireless Communications

More than 75% of the Earth surface is covered by water in the form of oceans. The oceans are unexplored and very far-fetched to investigate due to distinct phenomenal activities in the underwater environment. Underwater wireless communication (UWC) plays a significant role in observation of marine life, water pollution, oil and gas rig exploration, surveillance of natural disasters, naval tactical operations for coastal securities and to observe the changes in the underwater environment. In this regard, the widespread adoption of UWC has become a vital field of study to envisage various military and commercial applications that have been growing interest to explore the underwater environment for numerous applications. Acoustic, Optical and RF wireless carriers have been chosen to be used for data transmission in an underwater environment. The internet of underwater things (IoUT) and next-generation (5G) networks have a great impact on UWC as they support the improvement of the data rate, connectivity, and energy efficiency. In addition to the potential emerging UWC techniques, assisted by 5G network and improve existing work is also focusing in this study. This survey presents a comprehensive overview of existing UWC techniques, with possible future directions and recommendations to enable the next generation wireless networking systems in the underwater environment. The current project schemes, applications and deployment of latest amended UWC techniques are also discussed. The main initiatives and contributions of current wireless communication schemes in underwater for improving quality of service and quality of energy of the system over long distances are also mentioned.