The ocean is a hostile environment for just about any form of wireless communication - but developers are fighting back. KRISTI MORGANSEN, assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, knows all about the problems of underwater communications. "Doing anything wireless is really difficult because of the attenuation underwater," she explains. Morgansen is experimenting with ways of getting robots to cooperate under the waves. She envisions machines travelling in widespread artificial shoals tracking whales over long distances, or doing surveys of ocean pollution and seafloor mapping. "Anything where you can get more out of vehicles cooperating," she explains.
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