It's an MIT press release. Technique probably doesn't work at any interesting distance, but this way they can make it sound as if they've discovered something incredible without ever having to acknowledge that they know it won't work as described.

It seemed pretty clear that they did a prototype scale test and then the rest was computer modeling. I'm actually shocked they calibrated it to within 1dB of reality and am curious how they managed to prove that one.

I agree about academic press releases generally, but it seems to work as described? If their model is right and they build a larger prototype, which is normal scaleup from academia, a kilometer scale underwater RFID tagged sensor buoys responding to a transmitter seems like a reasonable if optimistic claim. They can't build that before modeling, and they can't model without a small scale system to cross-calibrate with.

This press release actually seems better than most to be honest...

An "interesting distance" at which this device could communicate is the distance which the Titan submersible operated below its ship.

MIT press releases are entertaining, like PopSci magazine articles, but less grounded in reality.

There's a second theory paper in that press release that discusses the range and verifies the model experimentally: http://www.mit.edu/~fadel/papers/PAB-theory-paper.pdf

This isn't a product that's already on the market, so what matters is how far it can get if actually commercialized - which is pretty impressive at such low power.

Sounds like a passive aggressive way of saying "tight ass funders didn't give us enough money to test this shit properly"

It was a truly marvelous demonstration which would have been revolutionary, but which the dock was too short to contain.

They were probably testing this in the Charles River, where the MIT sailing club meets— that's also where the marine autonomy lab [1] does their field work.

[1]: https://oceanai.mit.edu/

Wow.

If it’s “long distance” put the unwieldy piece where you have reserved space and move the less complex piece to borrowed space. Like another jetty, or a beach, or here’s a crazy idea: on a seaworthy vessel. You know, to test your marine communications device on a marine vehicle?

Yeah, I've worked in this space for many years (more on the autonomous vehicle side, but certainly work with acoustic folks) and am very familiar with the WHOI affiliates and the ONR sponsors. You're not wrong. The multiple reference to the dock being too short to perform longer range testing also struck me as odd. It's very simple to get an academic or industry partner to strap a device on a two boats for a test. It's done all the time. WHOI is always testing vehicles. Something's not adding up.

> They tested the array in more than 1,500 experimental trials...

..., but not a single trail on a rowing boat to see how far away they can go until the signal breaks down.