Dr. Manuel Muñoz Rodríguez, from the Universidad de Almería, spent three months at CIRS developing tools to evaluate optical communication links for underwater robotics, a stay that opens a new line of collaboration between both groups.
From July to October 2026, Dr. Manuel Muñoz Rodríguez, researcher at the Automatic Control, Robotics and Mechatronics (ARM) group of the Universidad de Almería, carried out a research stay at the Underwater Robotics Research Centre (CIRS) of VICOROB, Universitat de Girona.
Communication remains one of the main challenges in underwater robotics. Radio waves barely propagate in water, and acoustic links offer limited bandwidth. Optical communications can provide much higher data rates over short distances, but their performance depends heavily on the operating conditions.
During his stay, Manuel developed a dashboard to monitor optical communication links in real time and to evaluate their performance under different conditions, including depth, light intensity and distance. The goal was to determine whether this technology is suitable for real-world underwater missions.
The work was carried out using CIRS facilities, which combine real robotic platforms with simulation environments.
“Having these facilities available, both with real robots and in simulation, makes research much more straightforward,” Manuel explains.
Manuel returns to Almería with a working methodology and a technology stack that he plans to implement on the ARM group’s robot, as the starting point of a new research line in his group. The stay also lays the groundwork for continued collaboration between CIRS and the Universidad de Almería.
