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: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=646049
• 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中曾在哈利法克斯国防研究与开发（DRDC）领导的敌方船只的回声定位中进行了一项蓬勃发展的研究计划，但是90年代初期的冷战结束，突然中断了这些计划的资金。例如，在海事中，涡轮机部署涡轮机在Fundy湾有效地产生了大量投资。监测野生动植物和海底设备对于评估环境和经济影响至关重要。为了避免电缆的负担，提出了声学通信。为了延长部署的水下声学设备的寿命，应考虑低功率技术，但将固有地限制传输范围。但是，由于技术限制，目前，这些设备的通信功能受到严重限制。结果，一旦启动了AUV，通常就没有反馈机制，并且无法实时监控和控制AUV的任务。需要一个可靠的通信链接，该链接需要视频传输，并且需要在100 kbps的订单上达到高数据速率。水下通信的技术挑战部分是由于用于水下传输的设备的运行频率低，但主要是由于声音水下的不可预测的传播。可以想象，在海洋中，电流和波浪会产生动态变化的环境，很难预测信号的变形。当前控制信号传播的物理现象的准确模型包括频率依赖性吸收，多径到达，由于迁移率和小规模波动而引起的多普勒移位。为了减轻失真，拟议的数字算法将需要补偿水下传播极端损害。同样，发射器和接收器将配备多个传输器和水力机以提高数据速率。**使用多个传感器将需要大量的内存和重要的计算资源。为了满足这些要求，信号处理将在自定义完全集成的平台上进行编程。此外，为了使处理器的模拟界面并因此最大程度地减少芯片外互连的数量，集成电路还将容纳高分辨率数据转换器。加拿大被3个大型水包围，将从该项目中开发的研究中受益匪浅。这项研究将与哈利法克斯的当地行业合作，以针对需要次海监测的商业和科学应用。