A new frontier for marine robot communication: UF scientists develop BlueME

From the shallow shores of Lake Wahlberg to the salty depths of the ocean, University of Florida researchers are dropping robots in the water and training them to communicate more efficiently in murky conditions. 

Their goal is to underwater robots share information over longer distances within compact, energy-efficient equipment — a capability that could improve everything from naval operations to environmental monitoring and offshore infrastructure inspections. 

The project, led by Md Jahidul Islam, Ph.D., and Adam Khalifa, Ph.D., assistant professors in UFs Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, combines UF expertise in marine robotics, wireless systems and magnetoelectric device design.

The team's recent paper, “BlueME: Robust Underwater Robot-to-Robot Communication Using Compact Magnetoelectric Antennas,” was published through the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, or JOE, with co-authors Mehron Talebi and Sultan Mahmud. 

At the center of the project is BlueME, a compact magnetoelectric antenna system designed specifically for underwater communication. Unlike conventional approaches that can require large antennas or significant power, BlueME operates with its own natural resonance frequency to efficiently transmit and receive very low and low-frequency (VLF/LF) electromagnetic signals underwater. 

“Efficiency is super critical,” Islam said. “Our design benchmark was to keep power consumption very low, ideally lower than a standard stereo camera system, while maintaining robust communication performance. Our compact, energy-efficient BlueME system achieves that balance, operating around 10 watts of power at maximum capacity.” 

Islam has made a name for himself with robotics research, much of it with underwater robots. Khalifa’s research explores minimally invasive, wireless medical microdevices that can be injected rather than surgical implanted.  

“I’ve spent years designing miniature wireless implants and studying efficient power transfer in highly conductive environments,” Khalifa said. “At one point, it clicked that many of the same physical challenges inside the human body also exist underwater. Our body is effectively made of lightly salted water. That realization opened the door to thinking about ocean communication in a completely different way.” 

That cross-disciplinary connection quickly revealed broader opportunities for autonomous marine systems. 

“Underwater multi-robot coordination remains extremely difficult because communication bandwidth and range are so limited,” Islam said. “Today, many underwater robots can only exchange sparse status signals or rely on surfacing periodically to transmit mission data. That significantly limits real-time autonomy and coordination.” 

BlueME is designed to help close that gap. In ocean experiments, the system demonstrated communication ranges exceeding 700 meters while operating with a compact, energy-efficient architecture. 

“Imagine the robot pings you back every 10 minutes on how the mission is going, and the operator can make real-time decisions and maybe adapt the mission,” Islam said. 

The team believes this represents one of the first practical demonstrations of compact magnetoelectric antennas for underwater robotic communication. They have filed a provisional patent and are pursuing additional support to refine the technology and expand testing with autonomous underwater vehicles.  

“What makes this especially exciting is the long-term potential,” Khalifa said. “We demonstrated these results with very limited initial resources. With dedicated development and larger-scale deployment, the possibilities become much broader.” 

Islam sees the technology as part of a larger transformation in ocean robotics. 

“We are still in the early stages. But advances in compact underwater communication could fundamentally change how autonomous marine systems collaborate and operate in complex ocean environments," he said. “We are talking about the very early days of a very powerful product.”