Challenge: Ensuring Reliable, High-Quality Transmissions
Bodies of water are always in motion and frequently choppy, creating a high degree of multipath fading as radio signals reflect off the water. The air above can be just as problematic, causing ducting as the signals move through air masses of different densities. Compounding the challenge, the vessel is in motion, and the land base can be many miles from the vessel. Therefore, the demands on a wireless communications system are stringent: It must efficiently handle multipath fading and ducting, travel long distances between hops and offer sufficient bandwidth to deliver heavy-duty applications.