It is widely believed that wider access to the aquatic environment will enhance human knowledge and understanding of the world's oceans which constitute the major part of our planet. Hence, the current development of underwater sensing and communication systems will produce scientific, economic and social benefits. New applications will be enabled, such as deeper ocean observation, environmental monitoring, surveying or search and rescue missions. Underwater communications differ from terrestrial communications due to the unpredictable and complex ocean conditions, relying on acoustic waves which are affected by many factors like large propagation losses, long latency, limited bandwidth capacity and channel stability, posing great challenges for reliable data transport in this kind of networks. The aim of this project is to design a future underwater acoustic communication system for dense traffic situations investigating the possibility of Medium Access with Interference Cancellation and Network Coding. The main efforts focus on reliability, low energy consumption, storage capacity, throughput and scalability