Internet of Underwater Things and Big Marine Data Analytics -- A Comprehensive Survey

The Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) is an emerging communication ecosystem developed for connecting underwater objects in maritime and underwater environments. The IoUT technology is intricately linked with intelligent boats and ships, smart shores and oceans, automatic marine transportations, positioning and navigation, underwater exploration, disaster prediction and prevention, as well as with intelligent monitoring and security. The IoUT has an influence at various scales ranging from a small scientific observatory, to a midsized harbor, and to covering global oceanic trade. The network architecture of IoUT is intrinsically heterogeneous and should be sufficiently resilient to operate in harsh environments. This creates major challenges in terms of underwater communications, whilst relying on limited energy resources. Additionally, the volume, velocity, and variety of data produced by sensors, hydrophones, and cameras in IoUT is enormous, giving rise to the concept of Big Marine Data (BMD), which has its own processing challenges. Hence, conventional data processing techniques will falter, and bespoke Machine Learning (ML) solutions have to be employed for automatically learning the specific BMD behavior and features facilitating knowledge extraction and decision support. The motivation of this paper is to comprehensively survey the IoUT, BMD, and their synthesis. It also aims for exploring the nexus of BMD with ML. We set out from underwater data collection and then discuss the family of IoUT data communication techniques with an emphasis on the state-of-the-art research challenges. We then review the suite of ML solutions suitable for BMD handling and analytics. We treat the subject deductively from an educational perspective, critically appraising the material surveyed.Comment: 54 pages, 11 figures, 19 tables, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, peer-reviewed academic journa

Dense and long-term monitoring of Earth surface processes with passive RFID -- a review

Billions of Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) passive tags are produced yearly to identify goods remotely. New research and business applications are continuously arising, including recently localization and sensing to monitor earth surface processes. Indeed, passive tags can cost 10 to 100 times less than wireless sensors networks and require little maintenance, facilitating years-long monitoring with ten's to thousands of tags. This study reviews the existing and potential applications of RFID in geosciences. The most mature application today is the study of coarse sediment transport in rivers or coastal environments, using tags placed into pebbles. More recently, tag localization was used to monitor landslide displacement, with a centimetric accuracy. Sensing tags were used to detect a displacement threshold on unstable rocks, to monitor the soil moisture or temperature, and to monitor the snowpack temperature and snow water equivalent. RFID sensors, available today, could monitor other parameters, such as the vibration of structures, the tilt of unstable boulders, the strain of a material, or the salinity of water. Key challenges for using RFID monitoring more broadly in geosciences include the use of ground and aerial vehicles to collect data or localize tags, the increase in reading range and duration, the ability to use tags placed under ground, snow, water or vegetation, and the optimization of economical and environmental cost. As a pattern, passive RFID could fill a gap between wireless sensor networks and manual measurements, to collect data efficiently over large areas, during several years, at high spatial density and moderate cost.Comment: Invited paper for Earth Science Reviews. 50 pages without references. 31 figures. 8 table

A Survey on Subsurface Signal Propagation

Wireless Underground Communication (WUC) is an emerging field that is being developed continuously. It provides secure mechanism of deploying nodes underground which shields them from any outside temperament or harsh weather conditions. This paper works towards introducing WUC and give a detail overview of WUC. It discusses system architecture of WUC along with the anatomy of the underground sensor motes deployed in WUC systems. It also compares Over-the-Air and Underground and highlights the major differences between the both type of channels. Since, UG communication is an evolving field, this paper also presents the evolution of the field along with the components and example UG wireless communication systems. Finally, the current research challenges of the system are presented for further improvement of the WUCs

Localization, Mapping and SLAM in Marine and Underwater Environments

The use of robots in marine and underwater applications is growing rapidly. These applications share the common requirement of modeling the environment and estimating the robots’ pose. Although there are several mapping, SLAM, target detection and localization methods, marine and underwater environments have several challenging characteristics, such as poor visibility, water currents, communication issues, sonar inaccuracies or unstructured environments, that have to be considered. The purpose of this Special Issue is to present the current research trends in the topics of underwater localization, mapping, SLAM, and target detection and localization. To this end, we have collected seven articles from leading researchers in the field, and present the different approaches and methods currently being investigated to improve the performance of underwater robots

Deep learning for internet of underwater things and ocean data analytics

The Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) is an emerging technological ecosystem developed for connecting objects in maritime and underwater environments. IoUT technologies are empowered by an extreme number of deployed sensors and actuators. In this thesis, multiple IoUT sensory data are augmented with machine intelligence for forecasting purposes

Modelling, Simulation and Data Analysis in Acoustical Problems

Modelling and simulation in acoustics is currently gaining importance. In fact, with the development and improvement of innovative computational techniques and with the growing need for predictive models, an impressive boost has been observed in several research and application areas, such as noise control, indoor acoustics, and industrial applications. This led us to the proposal of a special issue about “Modelling, Simulation and Data Analysis in Acoustical Problems”, as we believe in the importance of these topics in modern acoustics’ studies. In total, 81 papers were submitted and 33 of them were published, with an acceptance rate of 37.5%. According to the number of papers submitted, it can be affirmed that this is a trending topic in the scientific and academic community and this special issue will try to provide a future reference for the research that will be developed in coming years

Algorithms for propagation-aware underwater ranging and localization

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorWhile oceans occupy most of our planet, their exploration and conservation are one of the crucial research problems of modern time. Underwater localization stands among the key issues on the way to the proper inspection and monitoring of this significant part of our world. In this thesis, we investigate and tackle different challenges related to underwater ranging and localization. In particular, we focus on algorithms that consider underwater acoustic channel properties. This group of algorithms utilizes additional information about the environment and its impact on acoustic signal propagation, in order to improve the accuracy of location estimates, or to achieve a reduced complexity, or a reduced amount of resources (e.g., anchor nodes) compared to traditional algorithms. First, we tackle the problem of passive range estimation using the differences in the times of arrival of multipath replicas of a transmitted acoustic signal. This is a costand energy- effective algorithm that can be used for the localization of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and utilizes information about signal propagation. We study the accuracy of this method in the simplified case of constant sound speed profile (SSP) and compare it to a more realistic case with various non-constant SSP. We also propose an auxiliary quantity called effective sound speed. This quantity, when modeling acoustic propagation via ray models, takes into account the difference between rectilinear and non-rectilinear sound ray paths. According to our evaluation, this offers improved range estimation results with respect to standard algorithms that consider the actual value of the speed of sound. We then propose an algorithm suitable for the non-invasive tracking of AUVs or vocalizing marine animals, using only a single receiver. This algorithm evaluates the underwater acoustic channel impulse response differences induced by a diverse sea bottom profile, and proposes a computationally- and energy-efficient solution for passive localization. Finally, we propose another algorithm to solve the issue of 3D acoustic localization and tracking of marine fauna. To reach the expected degree of accuracy, more sensors are often required than are available in typical commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) phased arrays found, e.g., in ultra short baseline (USBL) systems. Direct combination of multiple COTS arrays may be constrained by array body elements, and lead to breaking the optimal array element spacing, or the desired array layout. Thus, the application of state-of-the-art direction of arrival (DoA) estimation algorithms may not be possible. We propose a solution for passive 3D localization and tracking using a wideband acoustic array of arbitrary shape, and validate the algorithm in multiple experiments, involving both active and passive targets.Part of the research in this thesis has been supported by the EU H2020 program under project SYMBIOSIS (G.A. no. 773753).This work has been supported by IMDEA Networks InstitutePrograma de Doctorado en Ingeniería Telemática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Paul Daniel Mitchell.- Secretario: Antonio Fernández Anta.- Vocal: Santiago Zazo Bell

Electrophysiologic assessment of (central) auditory processing disorder in children with non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate

Session 5aPP - Psychological and Physiological Acoustics: Auditory Function, Mechanisms, and Models (Poster Session)Cleft of the lip and/or palate is a common congenital craniofacial malformation worldwide, particularly non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate (NSCL/P). Though middle ear deficits in this population have been universally noted in numerous studies, other auditory problems including inner ear deficits or cortical dysfunction are rarely reported. A higher prevalence of educational problems has been noted in children with NSCL/P compared to craniofacially normal children. These high level cognitive difficulties cannot be entirely attributed to peripheral hearing loss. Recently it has been suggested that children with NSCLP may be more prone to abnormalities in the auditory cortex. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether school age children with (NSCL/P) have a higher prevalence of indications of (central) auditory processing disorder [(C)APD] compared to normal age matched controls when assessed using auditory event-related potential (ERP) techniques. School children (6 to 15 years) with NSCL/P and normal controls with matched age and gender were recruited. Auditory ERP recordings included auditory brainstem response and late event-related potentials, including the P1-N1-P2 complex and P300 waveforms. Initial findings from the present study are presented and their implications for further research in this area —and clinical intervention—are outlined. © 2012 Acoustical Society of Americapublished_or_final_versio

Underwater Acoustic Modems

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Due to the growing interest using underwater acoustic networks, there are more and more research papers about underwater communications. These papers are mainly focused on deployments and studies about the constraints of the underwater medium. The underwater acoustic channel is highly variable and the signal transmission can change according to environmental factors such as the temperature, pressure or salinity of the water. For this reason, it is important to know how these devices are developed and the maximum distance and data transfer rates they can achieve. To this end, this paper presents an exhaustive study of existing underwater acoustic modems where their main features are highlighted. We also review the main features of their hardware. All presented proposals in the research literature are compared with commercial underwater acoustic modems. Finally, we analyze different programs and improvements of existing network simulators that are often used to simulate and estimate the behavior of underwater networks.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion through the Plan Nacional de I+D+i 2008-2011 within the Subprograma de Proyectos de Investigacion Fundamental under Project TEC2011-27516. The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving it for publication was Dr. Lei Shu. (Corresponding author: Jaime Lloret.)Sendra, S.; Lloret, J.; Jimenez, JM.; Parra-Boronat, L. (2015). Underwater Acoustic Modems. IEEE Sensors Journal. 16(11):4063-4071. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2015.2434890S40634071161