Acoustic telemetry--An overview

Acoustic telemetry from underwater submersibles and sensors has been pursued ever since it was recognized that the ocean could support signal transmission. While it has been evident that some form of communication is possible, the ocean has proved to be a distressingly difficult medium in which to achieve high data rates. High data rate transmission requires a wide bandwidth which is severely constrained in the ocean because of the absorption of high-frequency energy. Moreover, the ocean is a very reverberant environment with both time and frequency spreading of signals; this further limits data transmission rates. The net effect of the bandwidth and reverberation constraints has led to either acoustic telemetry systems with low data rates or to the use of tethered systems. Over the years, various forms of acoustic communication systems have been developed. These have included direct AM and SSB for underwater telephones, FM for sensor data, FSK and DPSK for digital data, and parametric sonars for narrow-beam systems. As offshore operations have increased, several other systems have been proposed and/or built to respond to particular needs. In this paper, we review the underwater channel and the limitations that it imposes upon acoustic telemetry systems. We then survey some of the systems that have been built (excluding military systems) and indicate how they use various communication system principles to overcome these limitations.     

水声信道高速率数据传输的换能器研制

在复杂的水声信道中 ,实现高速率的数据传输 ,水声换能器的带宽是一个重要的技术问题。实验中 ,为了拓宽换能器的带宽 ,我们利用圆柱形压电换能器的径向振动与液腔振动相耦合原理研制自由溢流式换能器和利用纵向振动与前盖板弯曲振动相耦合原理研制纵向振动复合棒换能器。本文介绍适应于复杂的水声信道中 ,进行高速率数据传输的两种宽频带换能器的研制     

The state of the art in underwater acoustic telemetry

Progress in underwater acoustic telemetry since 1982 is reviewed within a framework of six current research areas: (1) underwater channel physics, channel simulations, and measurements; (2) receiver structures; (3) diversity exploitation; (4) error control coding; (5) networked systems; and (6) alternative modulation strategies. Advances in each of these areas as well as perspectives on the future challenges facing them are presented. A primary thesis of this paper is that increased integration of high-fidelity channel models into ongoing underwater telemetry research is needed if the performance envelope (defined in terms of range, rate, and channel complexity) of underwater modems is to expand     

自主回收UUV水声定位与遥测遥控导引技术研究

针对 UUV 任务结束或能源不足时自主回收的需求,深入研究了 UUV 中远程水声定位与遥测遥控导引技术,完成了水声定位与遥测遥控导引系统方案设计,重点研究了 MFSK、OFDM、扩频等水声遥测遥控调制方式。 通过分析和对比,设计了一种正交混合扩频调制方式,并采用相干二维搜索技术,提高扩频技术多普勒补偿能力。 开展了湖上静态与动态跑船试验,试验数据结果表明:水声水平定位精度优于 0. 5%,水声遥测遥控系统解算误码率达到了 10^-3 数量级,可有效引导 UUV 回收作业。     

Spatial diversity processing for underwater acoustic telemetry

A large increase in the reliability of shipboard or stationary underwater acoustic telemetry systems is achievable by using spatially distributed receivers with aperture sizes from 0.35 to 20 m. Output from each receiver is assigned a quality measure based on the estimated error rate, and the data, weighted by the quality measure, are combined and decoded. The quality measure is derived from a Viterbi error-correction decoder operating on each receiver and is shown to perform reliability in a variety of non-Gaussian noise and jamming environments and reduce to the traditional optimal diversity system in a Gaussian environment. The dynamics of the quality estimator allow operation in the presence of high-power impulsive interference by exploiting the signal and noise differential travel times to individual sensors. The spatial coherence structure of the shallow water acoustic channel shows relatively low signal coherence at separations as short as 0.35 m. Increasing receiver spacing beyond 5 m offers additional benefits in the presence of impulsive noise and larger-scale inhomogeneities in the acoustic field. A number of data transmission experiments were carried out to demonstrate system performance in realistic underwater environments     

Temporal resolutions of time-reversal and passive-phase conjugation for underwater acoustic communications

In this paper, we study the temporal resolution of a time-reversal or passive-phase conjugation process as applied to underwater acoustic communications. Specifically, we address 1) the time resolution or the pulse width of a back-propagated time-compressed pulse as compared with the original transmitted pulse; 2) the effectiveness of temporal focusing as measured by the peak-to-sidelobe ratio of the back-propagated or phase-conjugated pulse (both pulse elongation and sidelobe leakages are causes of intersymbol interference and bit errors for communications); 3) the duration of temporal focusing or the temporal coherence time of the underwater acoustic channel; and 4) the stability of temporal focusing as measured by the phase fluctuations of successive pulses (symbols). Binary phase-shift keying signals collected at sea from a fixed source to a fixed receiver are used to extract the above four parameters and are compared with simulated results. Mid-frequency (3-4-kHz) data were collected in a dynamic shallow-water environment, exhibiting high temporal fluctuations over a scale of minutes. Despite this, the channel is found to be highly coherent over a length of 17 s. As a result, only one probe signal is used for 17 s of data. The bit error rate and variance of the symbol phase fluctuations are measured as a function of the number of receivers. They are of the same order as that calculated from the simulated data. The agreement suggests that these two quantities could be modeled for a communication channel with high coherence time. The phase variance can be used to determine the maximum data rate for a phase-shift keying signal for a given signal bandwidth and a given number of receivers.     

水声通信中基于小波变换的图像编码研究

提出了一种高误比特率传输条件下的图像编码方法，它适用于水声信道的图像传输。针对水下图像的特点，选取合适的小波基和变换参数对图像进行离散小波变换；依据小波系数的能量分布特性，对不同的子带采用不同的量化和定长编码，编码率为0．8比特／像素。水声通信试验表明，在传输误比特率达到10^-2时，仍能得到可接受的图像质量。     

Low-bit-rate coding of underwater video using wavelet-basedcompression algorithms

Recent advances in autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and underwater communication technology have promoted a surge of research activity within the area of signal and information processing. A new application is proposed herein for capturing and processing underwater video onboard an untethered AUV, then transmitting it to a remote platform using acoustic telemetry. Since video communication requires a considerably larger bandwidth than that provided by an underwater acoustic channel, the data must be massively compressed prior to transmission from the AUV. Past research has shown that the low contrast and low-detailed nature of underwater imagery allows for low-bit-rate coding of the data by wavelet-based image-coding algorithms. In this work, these findings have been extended to the design of a wavelet-based hybrid video encoder which employs entropy-constrained vector quantization (ECVQ) with overlapped block-based motion compensation. The ECVQ codebooks were designed from a statistical source model which describes the distribution of high subband wavelet coefficients in both intraframe and prediction error images. Results indicate that good visual quality can be achieved for very low bit-rate coding of underwater video with our algorithm     

Adaptive multiuser detection for underwater acoustical channels

An underwater acoustic local area network (ALAN) provides multipoint-to-point telemetry between many high-rate, ocean-bottom sensors and a central, surface-deployed receiver in the 10-30 kHz vertical acoustical channel. Ocean-bottom modems initiate the transmission process by requesting data channel time slots via a common narrow-band request channel. Request packets overlap in time and frequency in this channel, and the throughput and average transmission delay rely heavily on the successful resolution of the request packet collisions. This paper presents the design, analysis, and experimental demonstration of a request channel receiver capable of resolving collisions between several asynchronous and cochannel packets. The receiver algorithm differs from standard capture schemes (by demodulating the data from both strong and weak transmitters), conventional spread-spectrum receivers (by overcoming the near-far problem), and existing multiple-access demodulation techniques (by adapting to the number of interfering signals, and the unknown phase, Doppler, amplitude, and timing of each signal in the collision). The receiver demodulates the collided packets by decision-directed techniques through a novel method of estimating the interference for each user which minimizes error propagation due to inaccurate tentative decisions. An inwater experiment illustrates that this technique is extremely desirable for collision resolution in underwater acoustic local area networks, and also for underwater autonomous vehicles with both sidescan sonar as well as acoustic telemetry links     

Spatial diversity equalization for MIMO ocean acousticcommunication channels

The available bandwidth of ocean acoustic channels is inherently narrow that impedes high-transmission rate and makes it difficult for multiple users to communicate simultaneously. To alleviate this problem, spatial diversity antennas are used to increase the date rate. In this paper, we employ the spatial diversity equalizers (SDE) to increase the effective channel bandwidth by minimizing the mean-square error (mse). Although joint equalizers have been used in digital telephone subscriber lines to suppress crosstalk, we apply the concept to ocean acoustic channels and show that multiuser communication is possible despite the narrow-channel bandwidth. In addition, we will show that the advantage of SDE is not because we use more taps, but because we collect the data carried through various ocean paths. By applying the saddle point integration method to multiinput multioutput (MIMO) channels, we compute the probability of error (PE) to show that a factor of 3-4 of channel reuse is possible     

High-Rate Communication for Underwater Acoustic Channels Using Multiple Transmitters and Space–Time Coding: Receiver Structures and Experimental Results

In this paper, we consider the use of multiple antennas and space-time coding for high data rate underwater acoustic (UWA) communications. Recent advances in information theory have shown that significant capacity gains can be achieved by using multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems and space-time coding techniques for rich scattering environments. This is especially significant for the UWA channel where the usable bandwidth is severely limited due to frequency-dependent attenuation. In this paper, we propose to use space-time coding and iterative decoding techniques to obtain high data rates and reliability over shallow-water, medium-range UWA channels. In particular, we propose to use space-time trellis codes (STTCs), layered space-time codes (LSTCs) and their combinations along with three low-complexity adaptive equalizer structures at the receiver. We consider multiband transmissions where the available bandwidth is divided into several subbands with guard bands in between them. We describe the theoretical basis of the proposed receivers along with a comprehensive set of experimental results obtained by processing data collected from real UWA communications experiments carried out in the Pacific Ocean. We demonstrate that by using space-time coding at the transmitter and sophisticated iterative processing at the receiver, we can obtain data rates and spectral efficiencies that are not possible with single transmitter systems at similar ranges and depths. In particular, we have demonstrated reliable transmission at a data rate of 48 kb/s in 23 kHz of bandwidth, and 12 kb/s in 3 kHz of bandwidth (a spectral efficiency of 4 bs^-1Hz^-1) at a 2-km range.     

Underwater Acoustic Communication Based on Pattern Time Delay Shift Coding Scheme

1 .Introduction Underwater acoustic (UWA) communicationis a fast developingfield,and its applicationis notlimitedto military affairs ,but is also extendinginto commercial fields .Catipovic (1990) ,Stojanovic(1996) and Kilfoyle and Baggeroer (2000) pointed…     

Estimation of Rapidly Time-Varying Sparse Channels

The estimation of sparse shallow-water acoustic communication channels and the impact of estimation performance on the equalization of phase coherent communication signals are investigated. Given sufficiently wide transmission bandwidth, the impulse response of the shallow-water acoustic channel is often sparse as the multipath arrivals become resolvable. In the presence of significant surface waves, the multipath arrivals associated with surface scattering fluctuate rapidly over time, in the sense that the complex gain, the arrival time, and the Dopplers of each arrival all change dynamically. A sparse channel estimation technique is developed based on the delay-Doppler-spread function representation of the channel. The delay-Doppler-spread function may be considered as a first-order approximation to the rapidly time-varying channel in which each channel component is associated with Doppler shifts that are assumed constant over an averaging interval. The sparse structure of the delay-Doppler-spread function is then exploited by sequentially choosing the dominant components that minimize a least squares error. The advantage of this approach is that it captures both the channel structure as well as its dynamics without the need of explicit dynamic channel modeling. As the symbols are populated with the sample Dopplers, the increase in complexity depends on the channel Doppler spread and can be significant for a severely Doppler-spread channel. Comparison is made between nonsparse recursive least squares (RLS) channel estimation, sparse channel impulse response estimation, and estimation using the proposed approach. The results are demonstrated using experimental data. In training mode, the proposed approach shows a 3-dB reduction in signal prediction error. In decision-directed mode, it improves significantly the robustness of the performance of the channel-estimate-based equalizer against rapid channel fluctuations.     

Channel capacity in bits per joule

Underwater acoustic telemetry has a total input energy constraint, since the energy is stored in the transmitter's batteries. This work is primarily rephrasing the work in channel capacity in terms ofC_{J}bit/J as compared toCbit/s, to emphasize the energy efficiency and to deemphasize the speed of the telemetry. The energy channel capacityC_{J}, for any waveform channel with well-defined capacityCbit/s at signal powerSwatts, is defined asC/Sbit/J. It is shown that for coherent binary frequency shift keying (BFSK) and waveform channels, the supremum ofC_{J}overSis approached asSapproaches zero. For the Gaussian channel the best coding uses narrow bands with the highest S/N.     

Simulations of an adaptive equalizer applied to high-speed oceanacoustic data transmission'

Computer simulations are carried out to study the feasibility of an adaptive equalizer applied to an hydroacoustic data-transmission channel. The channel is examined with a comprehensive acoustical model to acquire worst-case examples of the ocean acoustic transmission channel. The equalizer performance is investigated by simulations with a computer-generated channel response. Equalizer behavior in a mobile time-variant environment is also studied by use of a simplified, time-discrete multipath channel model. A stochastic gradient lattice equalizer is simulated for a channel which varies due to movement of the transmitter platform. The equalizer was able to track a velocity of up to 0.4 m/s for a favorable transmission geometry, using a transmitter beamwidth of 10°. The results demonstrate the feasibility of coherent modulation schemes for medium-distance ocean acoustic telemetry. It was found that small beamwidths are imperative in maintaining signal coherence and in facilitating adaptive equalization. In particular, narrow-beam transducers will reduce equalizer complexity as well as the frequency spread     

海洋声速起伏对声传播及定位精度影响分析

海洋中声速起伏导致水声信道发生变化,进而引起声线到达结构的变化,对水声传播及定位精度产生一定影响。为讨论这一效应,基于TDOA体制建立了考虑声线弯曲的水下目标无源定位模型,分析了声速起伏对水下声传播路径及传播时间的影响,进而研究了声速起伏对水下无源定位测量精度影响程度。结果表明:当水平传播距离较大时,声速剖面起伏对声传播路径及传播时间的影响更为显著;以典型四元阵为例,若基线长度为20 km,接收阵位于水下5 km处,在不考虑其它随机误差影响下,海洋声速起伏造成的声源定位误差量级在0.5 m以内。分析结果有助于更好地利用环境特征优化无源定位测量方案,可为高精度水下无源定位系统设计及精度评估提供依据。     

MIMO Underwater Acoustic Communication in Shallow Water with Ice Cover

Although multiple-input multiple-output(MIMO) underwater acoustic(UWA) communication has been intensively investigated in the past years, existing works mainly focus on open-water environment. There is no work reporting MIMO acoustic communication in under-ice environment. This paper presents results from a recent MIMO acoustic communication experiment which was conducted in Bohai Gulf during winter. In this experiment, high frequency MIMO signals centered at 10 kHz were transmitted from a two-element source array to a four-element vertical receiving array at 1 km range. According to the received signal of different array elements, MIMO acoustic communication in under-ice environment suffers less effect from co-channel interference compared with that in open-water environment. In this paper, time reversal followed by a single channel decision feedback equalizer is used to process the experimental data. It is demonstrated that this simple receiver is capable of realizing robust performance using fewer hydrophones(i.e. 2) without the explicit use of complex co-channel interference cancelation algorithms, such as parallel interference cancelation or serial interference cancelation.     

Effects of internal waves on sound pulse propagation in the Straitsof Florida

An unexplained result of broad-band transmission experiments made more than ten years ago by DeFerrari in the Straits of Florida (center frequency ~500 Hz, bandwidth ~100 Hz, water depth ~200-m, range ~20 km) is that the measured pulse response functions failed to show the expected multipath replicas of the transmitted pulse and instead were smeared into a single broad cluster (duration ~50-~350 ms) in which the unresolved multipaths fluctuated rapidly in geophysical time (coherence time ≪12 min) leaving only a relatively stable envelope that is useful for oceanographic inversion. It is demonstrated here that the effects of internal waves on sound pulse propagation in the Straits of Florida can explain these observed results, and it is suggested that similar instabilities of acoustic multipaths due to internal waves are to be expected in other shallow-water propagation conditions. The demonstration is based on numerical simulations with the broad-band UMPE acoustic model that includes multiple forward scattering from volume inhomogeneities induced by internal wave fluctuations that are described by a broad spectrum of excitation. The simulated temporal variability, stability, and coherence of acoustic pulse arrivals are displayed on geophysical time scales from seconds to many hours and are qualitatively in agreement with the measured data in the Straits of Florida     

Compound compensation strategies for wireless data communicationsover the multimodal acoustic ocean waveguide

Underwater acoustic communications (UAC) at the reverberation-limited range results in severely distorted information signals. Wide-band signals are subject to both intermodal and intramodal-type of dispersions. The underwater acoustic channel impulse response and the sidelobes strongly depend on the waveguide structure and the source and receiver positions. The motion and displacement from this position, as well as other environmental variabilities impose a real-time adaptivity for the receiver operation to keep track of the fluctuations. To increase the system's reliability and data rate, there is a need to employ adaptive equalizers and diversity techniques to improve the margins against noise, and intersymbol interference (ISI). Blind adaptive equalization (BAE) is the ideal adaptive compensation when operating point-to-multipoint networks, and centralized communication systems in general. Inherent optimum multiple resonant modes within the ocean acoustic waveguide can be exploited judiciously via a new proposed parallel data multicarrier modulation (MCM) scheme by sending data over the multiple subcarriers. MCM might eventually obviate equalization which introduces higher-order computational complexity to the receiver. The above modulation eliminates multipaths and allows operation at multiples of the single-carrier transmission rate. The system's immunity to distortions such as ISI, fast fades, and impulsive noises, is increased due to incorporation of symbol guard space. Direct comparisons with single carrier schemes (such as higher-order statistics (HOS)-based equalization) are of great interest, since the proposed new receiver configuration has low-complexity to provide a compact, portable and low-power practical acoustic modem. Finally, network topology issues are considered to determine optimum network architectures for underwater acoustic LANs. A central topology (CT) supported by BAE and MCM transmission is proposed