Patent ID: 7835226

Claim:
A system for communicating data in confined waveguides containing a fluid, the system comprising: a first node located at a first location of a confined waveguide, the first node comprising: a first processor to modulate data for transmission in the confined waveguide; and a transmitter unit including a transmitter to convert the modulated data to a transmission signal and a transducer to convert the transmission signal to a propagation signal to propagate via the fluid in the confined waveguide; and a second node located at a second location of the confined waveguide at a given distance away from the first node, the second node comprising: a receiver unit including a transducer to convert the propagation signal to a received signal and a receiver to convert the received signal to a modulated signal, the receiver unit including multiple transducers positioned about a cross section of the confined waveguide and further including a signal preconditioning unit to combine multiple received signals from the respective multiple transducer in a manner enhancing a combined received signal based on a mode classification of the propagation signal at the multiple tranducer; and a second processor coupled to the receiver unit to demodulate the modulated signal to a data signal.