On the Feasibility of Video Streaming through Underwater Acoustic Links

Nowadays video IP traffic accounts for 73% of the entire global Internet traffic with forecasts up to 82% by 2021 [1]. While live video streaming is already mature through media such as coaxial cables, optical fibers and radio links, real-time live video streaming through underwater acoustic communication is still in its infancy. The underdevelopment of underwater live streaming is due to both the unstable nature and the long propagation delay of the acoustic channel. The former poses several obstacles to reaching the needed bitrate capabilities, while the latter causes a non-negligible video latency proportional to the distance between transmitter and receiver. Despite these obstacles, a lot of research on advanced video codecs is conducted to reduce the required bitrates of a video stream. In addition, modem manufactures recently developed short range high rate acoustic modems. This work presents a feasibility study of a live video streaming based on the best performing video codecs (H.264/MPEG-AVC, H.265/MPEG-HEVC and VP9) through current commercial acoustic modems. The feasibility evaluation has been proved with a final pool test, where the video has been successfully streamed with real acoustic modems.