Experimental Observation of Lateral Waves Propagation Along Seabed

Effective use of radio frequency (RF) waves propagation in sea environment and development of high-efficiency antennas are crucial to utilize RF waves in seawater which has high attenuation coefficient. Lateral waves are theoretically well known as surface electromagnetic waves propagating along the boundary of lossy and relatively low loss media, which can expand the horizontal propagation distance than direct waves through homogeneous lossy medium. However, lateral waves propagating along seabed has been less experimentally studied than those along sea surface and far from practical realization. Our experimental results at real sea environment show that lateral waves along seabed expand horizontal propagation distance as expected by numerical calculation results. We believe this achievement is a significant step to realize underwater wireless sensor networks on seabed.