For OEMs, Integrators, and Mission Owners

Underwater Networking, Out of the Box

A complete communication layer for your subsea assets, AUVs, sensors, and divers, built on a configurable network stack. Use the stack, mitigate the integration risk.

Reimagining Underwater Connectivity

The Challenge

Most teams entering underwater networking start by buying acoustic modems, then spend years building the protocol stack, routing, and network logic on top. The physics is unforgiving and the development cost is high.

The Solution

Subnero gives you the communication layer, not just the modem. The Subnero Underwater Network is a field proven stack you configure for your topology, your nodes, and your subsea application, and that same stack carries your data on to shore. You skip the hardest part of the build and go straight to deployment.

One Network for Everything Underwater

The Subnero Underwater Network, or SUN, is a complete communication layer connecting subsea assets to the surface, shore, and cloud. At its core is a software-defined network stack that coordinates communication across fixed, mobile and surface-connected assets. It runs on Subnero Acoustic Smart Modems over acoustic links underwater, optical links where higher bandwidth is available, and terrestrial links above the surface.

Underwater, SUN turns independent devices, autonomous vehicles, seabed sensors, landers, divers, gateway buoys, and vessels, into one coordinated network. The same technology scales from a single relay link to a wide area fabric of many nodes.

Underwater networking solution connecting AUVs, ROVs, sensors, landers, and divers into one subsea communication network

Who Connects to the Network

Marine Robots

Keep command, control, and telemetry live as the vehicle moves through the operating area, and relay payload data such as imagery back through the network.

Sensor Nodes

Landers and moorings that log continuously and deliver their data over the network to a topside or shore endpoint, without a vessel sitting on station.

Divers

Messaging and telemetry between divers and a supervisor who is not in direct range, with position awareness across the whole team.

Applications

Passive acoustic monitoring network relaying seabed sensor contacts hop-by-hop to a gateway buoy
01. Offshore Energy Asset Monitoring

Pipelines, wellheads, and wind farm foundations report continuously over the network, with condition data delivered to shore without a vessel on station.

Data muling over an underwater network with a mobile node collecting from many seabed sensors
02. Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) for Marine Mammal Research

Hydrophone equipped seabed nodes detect whales, dolphins and other marine mammals and relay detections to shore in near real-time, with no recovery trips and no waiting for the data.

Diver communication and tracking network with relay nodes extending range to a supervisor
03. Ocean Observatories and Environmental Monitoring

Long term seabed stations and early warning sensors relay their data hop-by-hop to shore, season after season.

Underwater network for mine countermeasures with AUV handover between coverage cells
04. Marine Robotics Fleet Operations

Command, control, telemetry, and data offload for AUV and ROV fleets, with seamless handover as vehicles move across the survey area.

Underwater command and control network carrying traffic from every subsea asset to one operating picture
05. Data Muling

A mobile node or vehicle joins the network, collects data from many sensor nodes in one pass, and relays it back to your endpoint over the same stack.

Persistent subsea IoT with many sensor nodes on one always on underwater communication network
06. Persistent Subsea IoT

Many nodes, one always on network, from aquaculture farms to harbor infrastructure, scaling like a terrestrial communication layer.

Defense Applications

The same network underpins mine countermeasures, passive acoustic monitoring for surveillance, diver operations, and command and control. Explore the defense versions of these missions on our Defense page.

Explore Defense Applications →

A Ready Network Stack for Your Most Demanding Missions

The Build It Yourself Path

Buy modems, then spend years building the network logic on top, a multi-year research program before the first real mission.

The SUN Path

Much of the hardest work in underwater networking is already built, field-tested and configurable. Your team configures the network for its mission instead of inventing it from scratch.

Multiple Topologies, One Stack

Centralized cellular style underwater network topology with base station buoys, coverage cells, and AUV handover
Centralized, Cellular Style

Centralized deployments can support coordinated coverage across operating areas, including mobile assets and multiple users.

Ad hoc underwater mesh network topology relaying data hop-by-hop to a single gateway buoy
Ad Hoc Mesh

Distributed deployments can extend coverage across nodes when direct communication is not available.

Design, Simulate, Deploy

Underwater networks are hard to design and harder to validate before you get wet. Subnero gives you the complete toolchain to design, simulate, and validate the whole network on your desk before any node enters the water.

Design, simulate, and validate end to end, then deploy the same stack. Simulation and deployment share the same code, so what works on your desk is what runs in the ocean.

Underwater network toolchain loop from design in UnetStack to simulation in UnetSim and channel modeling to deployment on Subnero smart modems
Underwater cellular network deployed in Singapore waters by Subnero

Proven in the Field

Subnero deployed one of the world's first commercial underwater cellular networks in Singapore waters, demonstrating continuous coverage, seamless handover, multi-user resource sharing, and real-time tracking of subsea assets.

The deployment is documented in an OCEANS 2024 paper and a full case study, and the same technology is deployed with customers around the world.

Read the Singapore underwater cellular network story

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