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Featured in Chronicle Herald July 24, 2013

Dalhousie University is getting a $2.5-million industrial research chair to study ways of improving data transmission underwater.

The position is co-sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Ultra Electronics Maritime Systems Inc.

Christian Schlegel, an engineering professor at the Halifax university, will hold the research chair and lead the five-year project.

He said Wednesday the program’s goals include developing technology to carry high-speed data using underwater sound equipment.

“Squeezing ever-more data through that wireless channel is the name of the game,” Schlegel said in an interview.

The research may also lead to improvements in other types of communications networks that operate in challenging environments, such as below ground, through rock or in outer space, he said.

“The underwater channel is, in a sense, a new and very challenging environment” for industry, Schlegel said.

An official with Ultra Electronics said the development of better wireless technology will benefit the sound equipment company, which specializes in undersea surveillance and antisubmarine warfare.

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