University of Florida researchers have developed a compact antenna system intended to improve communication between underwater robots in environments where bandwidth, range and power use remain persistent constraints.
The system, called BlueME, uses compact magnetoelectric antennas to transmit and receive very low and low-frequency electromagnetic signals underwater. The project is led by Md Jahidul Islam and Adam Khalifa, assistant professors in the university’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with co-authors Mehron Talebi and Sultan Mahmud. Their paper, “BlueME: Robust Underwater Robot-to-Robot Communication Using Compact Magnetoelectric Antennas,” was published in the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering.
Underwater robot communication is limited by the difficulty of sending data through conductive and often low-visibility environments. Current systems can require large antennas, high power consumption or periodic surfacing to transmit mission data. The UF team designed BlueME to operate at its natural resonance frequency, with the aim of maintaining communication performance while keeping the hardware compact and energy-efficient.
“Efficiency is super critical,” Islam said. “Our design benchmark was to keep power consumption very low, ideally lower than a standard stereo camera system, while maintaining robust communication performance. Our compact, energy-efficient BlueME system achieves that balance, operating around 10 watts of power at maximum capacity.”
The research combines Islam’s work in underwater robotics with Khalifa’s background in wireless medical microdevices. Khalifa said the project drew on similarities between communication challenges in the human body and underwater environments.
“I’ve spent years designing miniature wireless implants and studying efficient power transfer in highly conductive environments,” Khalifa said. “At one point, it clicked that many of the same physical challenges inside the human body also exist underwater. Our body is effectively made of lightly salted water. That realization opened the door to thinking about ocean communication in a completely different way.”
In ocean experiments, BlueME demonstrated communication ranges of more than 700 meters using its compact architecture, according to the researchers. The system is intended to support underwater robot-to-robot communication and could be applied in areas such as naval operations, environmental monitoring and offshore infrastructure inspection.
Islam said underwater multi-robot coordination remains constrained by limited communication range and bandwidth. “Today, many underwater robots can only exchange sparse status signals or rely on surfacing periodically to transmit mission data,” he said. “That significantly limits real-time autonomy and coordination.”
The researchers have filed a provisional patent and are seeking additional support to refine the technology and expand testing with autonomous underwater vehicles.
“We are still in the early stages. But advances in compact underwater communication could fundamentally change how autonomous marine systems collaborate and operate in complex ocean environments,” Islam said. “We are talking about the very early days of a very powerful product.”
Photo credits: Md Jahidul Islam, Ph.D., and Adam Khalifa, Ph.D./UF
