Center for Robotics and Wireless Communications in Challenging Environments

A research center at the University of Iceland for the development of technologies for challenging and harsh environments, such as underwater, in arctic regions and locations with limited accessibility.
 
Funded by a Grant of Excellence from the Icelandic Research Fund in January 2023.

News

– Patent Applications:

  1. “Acoustic Active Reconfigurable Intelligent Metasurfaces for Broadband, Programmable Wavefront Control in Underwater Communication Networks”
    Inventors: F. Alizadeh, I. F. Akyildiz, K. Andersen, S. E. Thorsteinsson
  2. “AI-Guided Underwater Cooperative AUV Swarm for Probabilistic Capelin Spawning Habitats Survey with Graceful Degradation”
    Inventors: Jónsson, K. Andersen Mahgoli, I. F. Akyildiz, T. S. Giesta da Silva, G. J. Óskarsson, S. Þór Jónsson, K. Andersen

– F. Alizadeh, I. F. Akyildiz, K.  Andersen, S. E. Þorsteinsson, “Active Metasurfaces for Underwater Acoustic RIS: Control-Ready Reflection Modeling and Multifunctional Wave Control,” submitted for publication, 2026.

– F. Alizadeh, I. F. Akyildiz, K. Andersen, S. E. Þorsteinsson, “Programmable Active Metasurfaces for Underwater Acoustic RIS: OAM Wave Synthesis and Structured-Beam Communications,” submitted for publication, 2026.

– Mahgoli, I. F. Akyildiz, K. Andersen, T. S. Giesta da Silva, and S. E. Þorsteinsson, “Learning Ocean Channel Cartography: A Digital Twin Approach to Communication-Aware Autonomy for Maritime 6G,” IEEE Transactions on Communications,Under Review (Manuscript ID: TCOM-TPS-26-0206).

– Alizadeh, I. F. Akyildiz, K. Andersen, S. E. Þorsteinsson, “Tunable Active Metasurfaces for Next Generation Underwater aRIS-assisted Communication,” ACM WUWNet conference, 2025. Received the Best Paper Award.

– Mahgoli, I. F. Akyildiz, T. S. Giesta da Silva, S. T. Jonsson, K. Andersen, and S. E. Þorsteinsson, “Steering Uncertainty: Physics-Informed Mean Field Games for AUV Swarm Coordination in Underwater IoT,” IEEE International Symposium on the Internet of Things (ISIoT 2026), Reykjavik, Iceland. Submitted for Presentation.

– Mahgoli,  I. F. Akyildiz, T. S. Giesta da Silva, K. Andersen, S.E. Thorsteinsson, “Liquid Neural Semantic Communication for Packet-Loss Resilient Underwater Acoustics,” Eighth Underwater Communications and Networking Conference, UComms 2026, Sestri Levante, Italy. Submitted for Presentation.

– Mahgoli, I. F. Akyildiz, K. Andersen, S. E. Þorsteinsson, and M. Ö. Úlfarsson, “A Hierarchical AI-Driven Hybrid Communication Framework for Underwater Swarm Coordination: Enabling Nanosecond Synchronization and Robust Cooperative MIMO Performance,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, Published in 30th of March 2026.

– H. Guo, , I. F. Akyildiz, , S. E. Thorsteinsson, and K. Andersen, “Joint Wireless Charging Planning and Task Assignment for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles”, to appear at IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), December 2025.

– Farzad Alizadeh, Ian F. Akyıldız, Kristinn Andersen, Sæmundur E. Þorsteinsson, “Tunable Active Acoustic Metasurfaces for Next Generation Underwater aRIS-assisted Communication” submitted for publication, August 2025.

– Farzad Alizadeh, Ian F. Akyildiz, Hongzhi Guo, Kristinn Andersen, and Saemundur E. Thorsteinsson, “Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Underwater Acoustic Wave Control: Tonpilz Transducer Design, Beam Steering, and Coupling Mitigation”,  submitted for publication, August 2025.
 
– L. Zhao, J. Tan, J. Wang, I.F. Akyildiz, Z. Sun, “Increasing Underwater Channel Capacity and Dof using Acoustic RIS”, submitted for publication, July 2025.
 
– N. Tang, Y. Liu, X. Chu and I.F. Akyildiz, “Optimal Energy Efficiency in Underwater Acoustic Backscatter Networks: A Piezoelectric Design and Channel Optimization Framework”, submitted for publication, July 2025.
 
– Prof. Akyildiz received a new patent on Underwater Communication Networks. The title of the patent is
“Universal Multi-Mode Underwater Software Defined Modem”  with Patent Number US 0090080 A1, July 2025.
 
– T. Girici, H. Guo, I. F. Akyildiz, K. Andersen, and S. E. Thorsteinsson, “Formation Control for Swarm Underwater Vehicles using Multi-agent Deep Reinforcement Learning,” in Proc. 8th Int. Balkan Conf. on Communications and Networking (BalkanCom), June 2025.
 
– L.Zhao, J. Tan, J. Wang, I.F. Akyildiz and Z. Sun, “Covering Underwater Shadow Zones using Acoustic Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces”,  IEEE Infocom (premier conference in Networking) Proceedings, May 2025.

 

– S. J. Norðfjörð, S.  E. Thorsteinsson, and K. Andersen “Powering Underwater Robotics Sensor Networks through Ocean Energy Harvesting and Wireless Power Transfer Methods”, submitted for publication, December 2024.
 
– Prof. Akyildiz received a new patent on Underwater Communication Networks. The title of the patent is “Systems, Methods and Computer Readable Media of Automatic Network Slicing of Underwater Acoustic Communication System Resources” with Patent Number US 11,569, 920 B1 on Jan 31, 2023.
 
– N. Tang, Y. Liu, X. Chu, I.F. Akyildiz, “Design, Modeling and Analysis of Underwater Acoustic Backscatter Communications”, IEEE ICC (International Computer Communications) Conf., Denver, Colorado, USA, June 2024.
 
– Prof. Akyildiz gave a keynote speech entitled “On The Research Progress for Underwater Wireless Communication Networks” at the 17th Int. ACM Conference on Underwater Networks and Systems (ACM WUWNET’23) in Shenzhen, China on Nov 24-26, 2023.
 
– A call issued for Ph.D. and M.S. student applications, July 2023.

 

– Icelandic Research Fund grant awarded, February 2023.

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