LEDs could provide better data transmission under water

They are working on a device that will gather measurements on movements such as stroke count and then send it wirelessly in real time to a heads-up goggle display and poolside coach.

Underwater wireless communication is a particularly challenging area, with potential applications in tsunami and earthquake monitoring, marine archaeology, and search and rescue.

The problem is that electromagnetic signals such as radio frequencies cannot propagate effectively through water, while the acoustic sources currently used are limited by the speed of sound and experience path losses.

The current project began with sports engineers at Griffith University in Australia who wanted to extend the remote monitoring of athletes — for which there are now a number of commercial devices — to the pool environment. They turned to a research team at the Helmut Schmidt University in Germany, led by Dr Thomas Fickenscher.

‘From the combinations of many turns and different axes, you can process the real movements of the swimmer and get a lot of data from that — more than just stroke rate,’ Fickenscher told The Engineer.