Aplicación de la tecnología WiMAX a entornos marinos

Abstract

Wireless communications above the sea surface are affected by phenomena like shadowing and multipath. The system of buoys used in some scientific marine researches has to send and receive information by means of wireless communications, e.g. for water monitoring purposes. They usually use mobile telecommunication networks, when the system is inside coverage, or satellite links, with low speed data transmission. The VHF (Very High Frequency) systems have appeared as an alternative to the previous ones, but they present some problems that limit its performance. A research project between the universities of Cadiz and Abdelmalek Essaâdi tries to advance in the development of new technological applications to improve the marine communications. Particularly, the 5.8 GHz band (WiMAX unlicensed band in Spain) is used and a propagation channel measurement campaign in maritime environments was carried out to study a link between a buoy and a ship. It applies to conditions not well-covered by similar studies. This work is helpful to deploy WiMAX systems offshore.