_____________________________________________________________________________________ Collaborative Research: Data Communication via Particle Velocity Channels - A Paradigm Shift in Underwater Acoustic Communication
Over 75% of the earth?s surface is covered with water, with many resources upon which human life depends. High speed wireless data communication with acoustic waves among underwater sensors, deepwater moored instruments, autonomous underwater vehicles, and surface vessels is of crucial importance in many applications of national interest. Examples include offshore oil industry, environmental and ocean monitoring to predict natural disasters such as hurricanes, and so on. However, the underwater acoustic channel is a complex and highly bandlimited environment, and the achievable data rates by current systems are much smaller than the needs.
The core novel idea of the research is to transform the foundation of underwater acoustic communication, by communicating over the unexplored degrees of freedom of the acoustic field, i.e., the acoustic particle velocity channels. Over the past few decades, only the pressure channel of the acoustic field has been used for underwater communication. The key concept in this research is to take advantage of the vector components of the acoustic field, such as the three components of acoustic particle velocity. Particle velocity channels are promising for high speed communication, due to their possibly smaller delay spreads. The small size of particle velocity transceivers is another advantage over large pressure-only arrays traditionally used for underwater communication. In this research the investigators develop a cohesive framework for high rate underwater communication via acoustic particle velocity channels. The research objectives fall into two closely-related categories: channel modeling and transceiver design. Channel modeling objectives aim at understanding and characterization of particle velocity channels, whereas transceiver design objectives address new issues encountered at the channel modeling stage.
