Performance analysis of adaptive equalization for coherent acoustic communications in the time-varying ocean environment

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 118 (2005): 263-278, doi:10.1121/1.1907106.Equations are derived for analyzing the performance of channel estimate based equalizers. The performance is characterized in terms of the mean squared soft decision error of each equalizer. This error is decomposed into two components. These are the minimum achievable error and the excess error. The former is the soft decision error that would be realized by the equalizer if the filter coefficient calculation were based upon perfect knowledge of the channel impulse response and statistics of the interfering noise field. The latter is the additional soft decision error that is realized due to errors in the estimates of these channel parameters. These expressions accurately predict the equalizer errors observed in the processing of experimental data by a channel estimate based decision feedback equalizer (DFE) and a passive time-reversal equalizer. Further expressions are presented that allow equalizer performance to be predicted given the scattering function of the acoustic channel. The analysis using these expressions yields insights into the features of surface scattering that most significantly impact equalizer performance in shallow water environments and motivates the implementation of a DFE that is robust with respect to channel estimation errorsThis work has been supported by ONR Grant Nos. N00014-00-1-0048 and N00014-02-C-0201

Surface wave focusing and acoustic communications in the surf zone

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 116 (2004): 2067-2080, doi:10.1121/1.1771591.The forward scattering of acoustic signals off of shoaling surface gravity waves in the surf zone results in a time-varying channel impulse response that is characterized by intense, rapidly fluctuating arrivals. In some cases, the acoustic focusing by the curvature of the wave crest results in the formation of caustics at or near a receiver location. This focusing and the resulting caustics present challenges to the reliable operation of phase coherent underwater acoustic communications systems that must implicitly or explicitly track the fluctuations in the impulse response. The propagation physics leading to focusing are studied with both experimental data and a propagation model using surface wave profiles measured during the collection of the experimental data. The deterministic experimental and modeled data show good agreement and demonstrate the stages of the focusing event and the impact of the high intensity arrivals and rapid fluctuations on the ability of an algorithm to accurately estimate the impulse response. The statistical characterization of experimental data shows that the focusing by surface gravity waves results in focused surface reflected arrivals whose intensity often exceeds that of the direct arrival and the focusing and caustic formation adversely impacts the performance of an impulse response estimation algorithm.This work has been supported by ONR Grant Nos. N00014-96-1-0120, N00014-00-1-0303, N00014-99-1-0274, and N00014-00-1-0048

Coupled acoustic mode propagation through continental-shelf internal solitary waves

Author Posting. © IEEE, 1997. This article is posted here by permission of IEEE for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering 22 (1997): 256-269, doi:10.1109/48.585945.Three techniques are used to investigate mode coupling as acoustic energy passes through continental-shelf internal solitary waves (ISW's). Results from all techniques agree. The waves considered here are single downward undulations of a thermocline layer separating upper and lower well-mixed layers. Two techniques are numerical: parabolic equation (PE) solution and a sudden approximation joining range-invariant regions at sharp vertical interfaces. The third technique is an analytic derivation of ISW scale lengths separating adiabatic (at large scale) and coupled-mode propagation. Results show that energy is exchanged between modes as ISW's are traversed. The sharp interface solutions help explain this in terms of spatially confined coupling and modal phase interference. Three regimes are observed: 1) for short ISW's, coupling upon wave entrance is reversed upon exit, with no net coupling; 2) for ISW scales of 75-200 m, modal phase alteration averts the exit reversal, giving net coupling; transparent resonances yielding no net coupling are also observed in this regime; and 3) for long ISW's, adiabaticity is probable but not universal. Mode refraction analysis for nonparallel acoustic-ISW alignment suggests that these two-dimensional techniques remain valid for 0° (parallel) to 65° (oblique) incidence, with an accordant ISW stretchingThis work was supported by the Office of Naval Research under Grant N00014-95-1-0029 and Grant N00014-95-1-0051

A modeling study of acoustic propagation through moving shallow-water solitary wave packets

Author Posting. © IEEE, 1999. This article is posted here by permission of IEEE for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering 24 (1999): 16-32, doi:10.1109/48.740153.Propagation of 400-Hz sound through continental-shelf internal solitary wave packets is shown by numerical simulation to be strongly influenced by coupling of normal modes. Coupling in a packet is controlled by the mode coefficients at the point where sound enters the packet, the dimensions of the waves and packet, and the ambient depth structures of temperature and salinity. In the case of a moving packet, changes of phases of the incident modes with respect to each other dominate over the other factors, altering the coupling over time and thus inducing signal fluctuations. The phasing within a moving packet varies with time scales of minutes, causing coupling and signal fluctuations with comparable time scales. The directionality of energy flux between high-order acoustic modes and (less attenuated) low-order modes determines a gain factor for long-range propagation. A significant finding is that energy flux toward low-order modes through the effect of a packet near a source favoring high-order modes will give net amplification at distant ranges. Conversely, a packet far from a source sends energy into otherwise quiet higher modes. The intermittency of the coupling and of high-mode attenuation via bottom interaction means that signal energy fluctuations and modal diversity fluctuations at a distant receiver are complementary, with energy fluctuations suggesting a source-region packet and mode fluctuations suggesting a receiver-region packet. Simulations entailing 33-km propagation are used in the analyses, imitating the SWARM experiment geometry, allowing comparison with observationsThis work was supported by the Office of Naval Research under Grant N00014-95-1- 0029 and Grant N00014-95-1-0051

Investigation of mode filtering as a preprocessing method for shallow-water acoustic communications

Author Posting. © IEEE, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of IEEE for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering 35 (2010): 744-755, doi:10.1109/JOE.2010.2045444.Acoustical array data from the 2006 Shallow Water Experiment (SW06) was analyzed to show the feasibility of broadband mode decomposition as a preprocessing method to reduce the effective channel delay spread and concentrate received signal energy in a small number of independent channels. The data were collected by a vertical array, which spans the water column from 12-m depth to the bottom in shallow water 80 m in depth. Binary-sequence data were used to phase-shift-keyed (PSK) modulate signals with different carrier frequencies. No error correction coding was used. The received signals were processed by a system that does not use training or pilot signals. Signals received both during periods of ordinary internal wave activity and during a period with unusually strong internal wave solitons were processed and analyzed. Different broadband mode-filtering methods were analyzed and tested. Broadband mode filtering decomposed the received signal into a number of independent signals with a reduced delay spread. The analysis of signals from the output of mode filters shows that even a simple demodulator can achieve a low bit error rate (BER) at a distance 19.2 km.This work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR)

Modal processing for acoustic communications in shallow water experiment

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 124 (2008): EL177-EL181, doi:10.1121/1.2960954.Acoustical array data from the Shallow Water Acoustics experiment was processed to show the feasibility of broadband mode decomposition as a preprocessing method to reduce the effective channel delay spread and concentrate received signal energy in a small number of independent channels. The data were collected by a vertical array designed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Phase-shift Keying (PSK) m-sequence modulated signals with different carrier frequencies were transmitted at a distance 19.2 km from the array. Even during a strong internal waves activity a low bit error rate was achieved.The research was supported by ONR

Sparse channel estimation for multicarrier underwater acoustic communication : from subspace methods to compressed sensing

Author Posting. © IEEE, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of IEEE for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing 58 (2010): 1708-1721, doi:10.1109/TSP.2009.2038424.In this paper, we investigate various channel estimators that exploit channel sparsity in the time and/or Doppler domain for a multicarrier underwater acoustic system. We use a path-based channel model, where the channel is described by a limited number of paths, each characterized by a delay, Doppler scale, and attenuation factor, and derive the exact inter-carrierinterference (ICI) pattern. For channels that have limited Doppler spread we show that subspace algorithms from the array processing literature, namely Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT, can be applied for channel estimation. For channels with Doppler spread, we adopt a compressed sensing approach, in form of Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) and Basis Pursuit (BP) algorithms, and utilize overcomplete dictionaries with an increased path delay resolution. Numerical simulation and experimental data of an OFDM block-by-block receiver are used to evaluate the proposed algorithms in comparison to the conventional least-squares (LS) channel estimator.We observe that subspace methods can tolerate small to moderate Doppler effects, and outperform the LS approach when the channel is indeed sparse. On the other hand, compressed sensing algorithms uniformly outperform the LS and subspace methods. Coupled with a channel equalizer mitigating ICI, the compressed sensing algorithms can effectively handle channels with significant Doppler spread.C. Berger, S. Zhou, and P. Willett are supported by ONR grants N00014-09-10613, N00014-07-1-0805, and N00014-09-1-0704

Distributed space–time cooperative schemes for underwater acoustic communications

Author Posting. © IEEE, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of IEEE for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering 33 (2008): 489-50, doi:10.1109/JOE.2008.2005338.In resource limited, large scale underwater sensor networks, cooperative communication over multiple hops offers opportunities to save power. Intermediate nodes between source and destination act as cooperative relays. Herein, protocols coupled with space-time block code (STBC) strategies are proposed and analyzed for distributed cooperative communication. Amplify-and-forward-type protocols are considered, in which intermediate relays do not attempt to decode the information. The Alamouti-based cooperative scheme proposed by Hua (2003) for flat-fading channels is generalized to work in the presence of multipath, thus addressing a main characteristic of underwater acoustic channels. A time-reversal distributed space-time block code (TR-DSTBC) is proposed, which extends the dual-antenna TR-STBC (time-reversal space-time block code) approach from Lindskog and Paulraj (2000) to a cooperative communication scenario for signaling in multipath. It is first shown that, just as in the dual-antenna STBC case, TR along with the orthogonality of the DSTBC essentially allows for decoupling of the vector intersymbol interference (ISI) detection problem into separate scalar problems, and thus yields strong performance (compared with single-hop communication) and with substantially reduced complexity over nonorthogonal schemes. Furthermore, a performance analysis of the proposed scheme is carried out to provide insight on the performance gains, which are further confirmed via numerical results based on computer simulations and field data experiments

Reflection of underwater sound from surface waves

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 125 (2009): 66-72, doi:10.1121/1.3035828.A tank experiment has been conducted to measure reflection of underwater sound from surface waves. Reflection from a wave crest leads to focusing and caustics and results in rapid variation in the received waveform as the surface wave moves. Theoretical results from wavefront modeling show that interference of three surface reflected eigenrays for each wave crest produces complicated interference waveforms. There is good agreement between theory and experiment even on the shadow side of caustics where there are two surface reflected arrivals but only one eigenray.The support of the Office of Naval Research, Grant No. N00014-04-1-0728, is gratefully acknowledge