Harvesting time-frequency-space diversity with coded modulation for underwater acoustic communications

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-180).The goal of this thesis is to design a low-complexity, high data-rate acoustic communications system with robust performance under various channel conditions. The need for robust performance emerges because underwater acoustic (UWA) channels have time-varying statistics, thus a coded modulation scheme optimally designed for a specific channel model will be suboptimal when the channel statistics change. A robust approach should use a coded modulation scheme that provides good performance in both additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh fading channels (and, consequently in the Rice fading channel, an intermediate channel model between the latter two). Hence, high data-rate coded modulation schemes should exhibit both large free Euclidean and Hamming distances. In addition, coded modulation is regarded as a way to achieve time diversity over interleaved flat fading channels. UWA channels offer additional diversity gains in both frequency and space; therefore a system that exploits diversity in all three domains is highly desirable. Two systems with the same bit-rate and complexity but different free Euclidean and Hamming distances are designed and compared. The first system combines Trellis Coded Modulation (TCM) based on an 8-PSK signal set, symbol interleaving and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). The second system combines bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM), based on a convolutional code and a 16-QAM signal set, with OFDM.(cont.) Both systems are combined with specific space-time block codes (STBC) when two or three transmit antennas are used. Moreover, pilot-symbol-aided channel estimation is performed by using a robust 2-D Wiener filter, which copes with channel model mismatch by employing appropriate time and frequency correlation functions. The following result was obtained by testing the aforementioned systems using both simulated and experimental data from RACE '08: the BICM scheme performs better when the UWA channel exhibits limited spatial diversity. This result implies that coded modulation schemes emphasizing higher Hamming distances are preferred when there is no option for many receive/transmit hydrophones. The TCM scheme, on the other hand, becomes a better choice when the UWA channel demonstrates a high spatial diversity order. This result implies that coded modulation schemes emphasizing higher free Euclidean distances are preferred when multiple receive/transmit hydrophones are deployed.by Konstantinos Pelekanakis.Ph.D

Environmental model-based time-reversal underwater communications

Advances in underwater acoustic communications require the development of methods to accurately compensate channels that are prone to severe double spreading of time-varying multipath propagation, fading and signal phase variations. Assuming the environmental information as a key issue, this work aims to improve communications performance of single-input-multiple-output transmission systems in such channels through the enhancement of their estimates used for equalization. The acoustic propagation physical parameters of the environment between the source and the receivers are considered in the process. The approach is to mitigate noise e ects in channel identi cation for Passive Time-Reversal (PTR), which is a low complexity probe-based refocusing technique to reduce time spreading and inter-symbol interference. The method Environmental-based PTR (EPTR) is proposed that, inspired by matched eld inversion, inserts physics of acoustic propagation in the channel compensation procedure through ray trace modeling and environmental focalization processing. The focalization is the process of tweaking the environmental parameters to obtain a noise-free numerical model generated channel response that best matches the observed data. The EPTR performance is tested and compared to the pulse-compressed PTR and to the regularized `1-norm PTR. The former is based on classical `2-norm channel estimation and the latter, inspired by compressive sensing, uses weighted `1-norm into the `2-norm estimation problem to obtain improved estimates of sparse channels. Successful experimental results were obtained with the proposed method for signals containing image messages transmitted at 4 kbit/s from a source to a 16-hydrophones vertical array at 890 m range during the UAN'11 experiment conducted o the coast of Trondheim (Norway). The scienti c contributions of this work are (i) the understanding of the process of employing physical modeling and environmental focalization to equalize and retrieve received messages in underwater acoustic communications, thus exploiting the sensitivity of environmental parameters in order to adapt a communications system to the scenario where it is used; and (ii) the presentation of a new PTR-based method that focuses environmental parameters to model suitable noise-free channel responses for equalization and whose real data results were successful for a set of coherent signals collected at sea. The proposed method is a step forward to a better understanding on how to insert physical knowledge of the environment for equalization in digital underwater acoustic communications

Robust frequency-domain turbo equalization for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communications

This dissertation investigates single carrier frequency-domain equalization (SC-FDE) with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels for radio frequency (RF) and underwater acoustic (UWA) wireless communications. It consists of five papers, selected from a total of 13 publications. Each paper focuses on a specific technical challenge of the SC-FDE MIMO system. The first paper proposes an improved frequency-domain channel estimation method based on interpolation to track fast time-varying fading channels using a small amount of training symbols in a large data block. The second paper addresses the carrier frequency offset (CFO) problem using a new group-wise phase estimation and compensation algorithm to combat phase distortion caused by CFOs, rather than to explicitly estimate the CFOs. The third paper incorporates layered frequency-domain equalization with the phase correction algorithm to combat the fast phase rotation in coherent communications. In the fourth paper, the frequency-domain equalization combined with the turbo principle and soft successive interference cancelation (SSIC) is proposed to further improve the bit error rate (BER) performance of UWA communications. In the fifth paper, a bandwidth-efficient SC-FDE scheme incorporating decision-directed channel estimation is proposed for UWA MIMO communication systems. The proposed algorithms are tested by extensive computer simulations and real ocean experiment data. The results demonstrate significant performance improvements in four aspects: improved channel tracking, reduced BER, reduced computational complexity, and enhanced data efficiency --Abstract, page iv

Underwater acoustic communications in warm shallow water channels

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Effects of errorless learning on the acquisition of velopharyngeal movement control

Session 1pSC - Speech Communication: Cross-Linguistic Studies of Speech Sound Learning of the Languages of Hong Kong (Poster Session)The implicit motor learning literature suggests a benefit for learning if errors are minimized during practice. This study investigated whether the same principle holds for learning velopharyngeal movement control. Normal speaking participants learned to produce hypernasal speech in either an errorless learning condition (in which the possibility for errors was limited) or an errorful learning condition (in which the possibility for errors was not limited). Nasality level of the participants’ speech was measured by nasometer and reflected by nasalance scores (in %). Errorless learners practiced producing hypernasal speech with a threshold nasalance score of 10% at the beginning, which gradually increased to a threshold of 50% at the end. The same set of threshold targets were presented to errorful learners but in a reversed order. Errors were defined by the proportion of speech with a nasalance score below the threshold. The results showed that, relative to errorful learners, errorless learners displayed fewer errors (50.7% vs. 17.7%) and a higher mean nasalance score (31.3% vs. 46.7%) during the acquisition phase. Furthermore, errorless learners outperformed errorful learners in both retention and novel transfer tests. Acknowledgment: Supported by The University of Hong Kong Strategic Research Theme for Sciences of Learning © 2012 Acoustical Society of Americapublished_or_final_versio

Analysis of and techniques for adaptive equalization for underwater acoustic communication

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2011Underwater wireless communication is quickly becoming a necessity for applications in ocean science, defense, and homeland security. Acoustics remains the only practical means of accomplishing long-range communication in the ocean. The acoustic communication channel is fraught with difficulties including limited available bandwidth, long delay-spread, time-variability, and Doppler spreading. These difficulties reduce the reliability of the communication system and make high data-rate communication challenging. Adaptive decision feedback equalization is a common method to compensate for distortions introduced by the underwater acoustic channel. Limited work has been done thus far to introduce the physics of the underwater channel into improving and better understanding the operation of a decision feedback equalizer. This thesis examines how to use physical models to improve the reliability and reduce the computational complexity of the decision feedback equalizer. The specific topics covered by this work are: how to handle channel estimation errors for the time varying channel, how to use angular constraints imposed by the environment into an array receiver, what happens when there is a mismatch between the true channel order and the estimated channel order, and why there is a performance difference between the direct adaptation and channel estimation based methods for computing the equalizer coefficients. For each of these topics, algorithms are provided that help create a more robust equalizer with lower computational complexity for the underwater channel.This work would not have been possible without support from the O ce of Naval Research, through a Special Research Award in Acoustics Graduate Fellowship (ONR Grant #N00014-09-1-0540), with additional support from ONR Grant #N00014-05- 10085 and ONR Grant #N00014-07-10184