Mapping the unseen currents of the North Atlantic
The Hydro-Acoustic & Aerial Networks Lab at the University of Iceland studies how sound, magnetism and radio can stitch together ocean, air and shore into a single sensing fabric — without ever anchoring a buoy.
Our vision
A fjord as a laboratory, a coastline as an antenna
Iceland’s glacial fjords compress every hard problem in underwater and aerial networking into a few nautical miles — steep bathymetry, cold thermoclines, volcanic seabed noise, and weather that turns in an hour.
HAF treats this geography as an open-air testbed: acoustic links strung between autonomous vehicles, drones relaying above the surface, and a shore station tying it all back to a fibre backbone — all without a single moored buoy.
Objectives
What the lab is built to answer
01
Replace the buoy
Design acoustic and magnetic links robust enough that AUV-to-UAV coordination no longer depends on a surface relay, cutting deployment cost and environmental footprint.
02
Scale underwater bandwidth
Push Ultra-Massive MIMO architectures into shallow, high-multipath fjord waters where classical sonar-rate links break down.
03
Power the fleet in place
Develop inductive and acoustic power delivery so vehicles can recharge mid-mission from docked stations or from each other.
04
Engineer the medium itself
Shape acoustic metasurfaces that redirect, focus and filter sound in the water column, turning the seabed into part of the network.
Organization
Affiliation & structure
HAF operates within the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, and collaborates with international partners on next-generation underwater and aerial networking.
The lab is directed by its principal investigator and organized into three coordinated groups spanning acoustics, robotics and communications theory.
- Director’s Office — strategy, funding, external partnerships
- Acoustics & Metasurfaces Group — physical-layer design
- Robotics & Field Operations — AUV/UAV fleet, testbed logistics
- Communications Theory Group — MIMO, coding, network protocols
- Affiliated with the Icelandic Marine and Freshwater Research Institute
Facilities
Testbeds built for open water, not tanks
Our shore station overlooks a working fjord, feeding fibre backhaul to a fleet of AUVs, surface craft and fixed-wing UAVs launched directly from the coast.
A dedicated acoustic tank complements field trials for controlled metasurface and MIMO array characterization before vehicles ever leave the dock.
Funding acknowledgment
HAF’s research is supported by the Icelandic Research Fund (Rannís) under Grant 239994-051, with additional infrastructure support from the University of Iceland.