Enabling High-Speed Communication between Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

实现自主水下航行器之间的高速通信

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-05730
• 负责人: Bousquet, JeanFrancois
• 金额: $ 1.82万
• 依托单位: Dalhousie University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=637282
• 关键词: Enabling; Speed; Communication; between; Autonomous

Canada once had a thriving research program in underwater acoustics for the echolocation of enemy vessels led by Defence Research & Development Canada (DRDC) in Halifax but the end of the Cold War in the early ’90s brought a sudden interruption to the funding of these programs.Recently there has been an increasing interest in subsea exploration for a variety of applications, such as seaport surveillance, oceanographic behaviour analysis and monitoring of offshore equipment. For example, in the Maritimes, there is significant investment in the deployment of turbines for efficient energy generation in the Bay of Fundy. Monitoring of the wildlife and subsea equipment is crucial to assess environmental and economic impacts. To avoid the burden of cables, acoustic communication is proposed.In the proposed research program, we intend to develop state-of-the-art equipment to communicate acoustically in subsea environments. To extend the lifetime of deployed underwater acoustic equipment, low power techniques shall be considered, but will inherently limit transmission range.To help increase the communication range, we propose to use autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). However, communication capabilities to these devices are currently strongly restricted, due to technology limitations. As a result, once an AUV is launched, there is typically no feedback mechanism and the AUVs' mission cannot be monitored and controlled in real-time. A reliable communication link that allows video transmission is needed and would require a high data rate on the order of 100 kbps.Existing underwater acoustic modems have very limited throughput, on the order of 10 kbps and consume significant power, thus limiting the lifetime of the batteries in AUVs. The technical challenges for underwater communication are, in part, due to the low frequency of operation of the equipment used for underwater transmission, but primarily to the unpredictable propagation of sound underwater.In comparison to the well-understood radio-electric propagation channel, the underwater acoustic channel impairments are quite severe. One can imagine that in the ocean where currents and waves create a dynamically varying environment, it is difficult to predict the distortion of the signal. An accurate model of the physical phenomena that govern the signal propagation currently includes frequency dependent absorption, multipath arrival, Doppler shift due to mobility and small-scale fluctuations.The proposed work aims to improve the throughput of underwater communication by at least one order of magnitude using novel algorithms implemented on custom processors. In order to mitigate distortion, the proposed digital algorithms will need to compensate for the underwater propagation extreme impairments. Also, the transmitter and receiver will be equipped with multiple transducers and hydrophones to increase the data rate.Using multiple transducers will require a significant amount of memory and important computation resources. To satisfy these requirements, the signal processing will be programmed on a custom fully integrated platform. Additionally, to allow an analog interface to the processor and consequently minimize the number of off-chip interconnections, the integrated circuit will also hold high-resolution data converters.This research program shall lead to innovative solutions in the fields of communication, signal processing and very large scale integration (VLSI) technology. Canada being surrounded by 3 large bodies of water will benefit greatly from the research developed in this project. This research will be conducted in collaboration with local industry in Halifax for commercial and scientific applications that require sub sea monitoring.

加拿大曾经在水下声学上为由哈利法克斯开发A（DRDC）领导的敌方船只在水下声学中蓬勃发展对海上监视等各种应用的探索都增加对于电缆的某些环境和经济影响。应考虑HNIQUES，但将固有地限制Trange。为了增加通信范围TER车辆（AUV））Howver，设备的能力塞满了强大的强大限制，通常没有技术限制。任务无法实时控制，需要可靠的通信链接，并且需要对ustic调制解调器的订单的高数据速率，而AUV中的吞吐量非常有限。设备在水下传输的运行频率低，但主要是在不可预测的水下传播。难以预测信号的散发。信号传播目前包括依赖，多径到达，由于移动性尺度离子而导致的多普勒移位。在自定义处理器上，为了减轻扭曲，支撑的数字算法将带有多个换能器的水下繁殖在未能方面，对处理器并因此最大程度地减少了芯片互连的数量，集成电路还具有高分辨率数据转换器。此研究计划应导致通信和信号处理领域的创新解决方案以及大型CALE集成（VLSI）Technoda技术被3个大型的WIL机构带入了CT中的研究。