Soft Direct-Adaptation Based Bidirectional Turbo Equalization for MIMO Underwater Acoustic Communications

This paper proposes a soft direct-adaptation based bidirectional turbo equalizer for multiple-input multiple-output underwater acoustic communication systems. Soft, rather than hard, direct-adaptation based equalizer combined with the fast self-optimized least mean square algorithm is employed to achieve a faster convergence rate, and the second-order phase-locked loop is embedded into the equalizer to track the time-varying channel. Meanwhile, by utilizing a weighted linear combining scheme, the conventional soft direct-adaptation based equalizer is combined with the time-reversed soft direct-adaptation based equalizer to exploit bidirectional diversity and mitigate error propagation. Both the simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the soft direct-adaptation based bidirectional turbo equalizer outperforms the single-direction soft direct-adaptation based turbo equalizer, and achieves a faster convergence rate than the hard direct-adaptation based bidirectional turbo equalizer.

Feedback strategies for iterative channel estimation in OFDM underwater acoustic communications

The extremely limited bandwidth in underwater acoustic communication makes channel estimation using fewer pilot symbols more challenging. Iterative channel estimation( ICE) can be used to refine channel estimation with limited number of pilots,by coupling the channel estimator with channel decoder. In this paper,various feedback strategies in ICE are discussed. The performance of a decision feedback based on the cost function is improved by modifying the design and another four feedback strategies are summarized,including hard/soft decision feedback and their threshold-controlled versions. Simulation results show that ICE can achieve impressive gains over the non-iterative receiver and the gains are more significant with fewer pilots. Furthermore,soft decision feedback outperforms hard decision feedback; while the feedback based on the cost function and soft decision feedback have quite close performance.

LDPC Coded DQPSK Modulation with Iterative Detection Method for Underwater Acoustic Communications

Aimed at the conventional serial communication system fails when the channel was frequency-selective,long delay and multi-paths effect,resulting in inter-symbol-interference( ISI),an iterative system for underwater acoustic communication( UWAC) was proposed,which employed iterative differential detection and spread spectrum technique. The proposed scheme adopts π /4-DQPSK soft demodulation to overcome the difficulty of phase ambiguity. For suppression of ISI in UWAC,joint demodulation and decoding iteration was used. The communication scheme has the characteristic of long communication range at low SNR,and the maximum range is up to 100 km. The theoretic analysis and simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms traditional serial one. When SNR is- 6 dB,after four joint iterations,compared with serial scheme,BER can decrease from 10- 2to 10- 5.

Space-division multiple access for CDMA multiuser underwater acoustic communications

Time reversal mirror （TRM） can use the physical characteristics of the underwater acoustic （UWA） channel to focus on the desired user in multi-user UWA communication. The active average sound intensity （AASI） detector can estimate all azimuths of users with the same frequency band at the same time in order to achieve directional communication by vector combination. Space-division multiple access （SDMA） based on TRM combined with the AASI detector is proposed in this paper, which can make the capacity of the code division multiple access （CDMA） UWA system significantly increase. The simulation and lake test results show that the 7-user UWA multi-user system can achieve low bit error communication.

Modeling and Channel Estimation for Piezo-Acoustic Backscatter Assisted Underwater Acoustic Communications

Relying on direct and converse piezoelectric effects,piezo-acoustic backscatter(PAB)technology reflects ambient acoustic signals to enable underwater backscatter communications at near-zero power,which was first realized through a prototype.In this paper,we propose a mathematical model of the PAB assisted underwater acoustic(UWA)communication,and address the sparse channel estimation problem.First,we present a five-stage backscatter process to derive the backscatter coefficient,and propose the channel model for the shallow-water communications.Then,we formulate the shallow-water acoustic channel estimation problem as a sparse vector recovery one according to the compressed sensing theory,and leverage the orthogonal matching pursuit(OMP)algorithm to obtain the channel estimator.Finally,simulation results are provided to corroborate our proposed studies.

Low Complexity Adaptive Equalizers for Underwater Acoustic Communications

Interference signals due to scattering from surface and reflecting from bottom is one of the most important problems of reliable communications in shallow water channels. To solve this problem, one of the best suggested ways is to use adaptive equalizers. Convergence rate and misadjustment error in adaptive algorithms play important roles in adaptive equalizer performance. In this paper, affine projection algorithm （APA）, selective regressor APA（SR-APA）, family of selective partial update （SPU） algorithms, family of set-membership （SM） algorithms and selective partial update selective regressor APA （SPU-SR-APA） are compared with conventional algorithms such as the least mean square （LMS） in underwater acoustic communications. We apply experimental data from the Strait of Hormuz for demonstrating the efficiency of the proposed methods over shallow water channel. We observe that the values of the steady-state mean square error （MSE） of SR-APA, SPU-APA0 SPU-normalized least mean square （SPU-NLMS）, SPU-SR-APA0 SM-APA and SM-NLMS algorithms decrease in comparison with the LMS algorithm. Also these algorithms have better convergence rates than LMS type algorithm.

Underwater Acoustic Communication Based on Pattern Time Delay Shift Coding Scheme

Underwater acoustic communication based on Pattern Tune Delay Shift Coding （PDS） communication scheme is studied. The time delay shift values of the pattern are used to encode the digital information in the PDS scheme, which belongs to the Pulse Position Modulation （PPM）. The duty cycle of the PDS scheme is small, so it can economize the power for communication. By use of different patterns for code division and different frequencies for channel division, the communication system is capable of mitigating the inter-symbol interference （ISI） caused by the muhipath channel. The data rate of communication is 1000 bits/s at 8 kHz bandwidth. The receiver separates the channels by means of bandpass filters, and performs decoding by 4 copy-correlators to estimate the time delay shift value. Based on the theoretical analysis and numerical simulations, the PDS scheme is shown to be a robust and effective approach for underwater acoustic communication.

Shipborne Underwater Acoustic Communication System and Sea Trials with Submersible Shenhai Yongshi

The Shipborne acoustic communication system of the submersible Shenhai Yongshi works in vertical, horizontal and slant channels according to the relative positions. For ease of use, an array combined by a vertical-cone directional transducer and a horizontal-toroid one is installed on the mothership. Improved techniques are proposed to combat adverse channel conditions, such as frequency selectivity, non-stationary ship noise, and Doppler effects of the platform’s nonlinear movement. For coherent modulation, a turbo-coded single-carrier scheme is used. In the receiver, the sparse decision-directed Normalized Least-Mean-Square soft equalizer automatically adjusts the tap pattern and weights according to the multipath structure, the two receivers’ asymmetry, the signal’s frequency selectivity and the noise’s spectrum fluctuation. The use of turbo code in turbo equalization significantly suppresses the error floor and decreases the equalizer’s iteration times, which is verified by both the extrinsic information transfer charts and bit-error-rate performance. For noncoherent modulation, a concatenated error correction scheme of nonbinary convolutional code and Hadamard code is adopted to utilize full frequency diversity. Robust and lowcomplexity synchronization techniques in the time and Doppler domains are proposed. Sea trials with the submersible to a maximum depth of over 4500 m show that the shipborne communication system performs robustly during the adverse conditions. From the ten-thousand communication records in the 28 dives in 2017, the failure rate of the coherent frames and that of the noncoherent packets are both below 10%, where both synchronization errors and decoding errors are taken into account.

Fractional Fourier domain hopped communication method based on chirp modulation for underwater acoustic channels

To improve the data rate of underwater acoustic frequency-hopped communications, frequency hopping is applied to different orders of fractional Fourier domain (FrFD), to enable non-intrusive, bandwidth-limited acoustic communications. An FrFD frequency-hopped communication method based on chirp modulation, namely multiple chirp shift keying-FrFD hopping (MCSK-FrFDH), is proposed for underwater acoustic channels. Validated by both simulations and experimental results, this method can reach a bandwidth efficiency twice more than conventional frequency-hopped methods with the same data rate and anti-multipath capability, suggesting that the proposed method achieves a better performance than the traditional frequency hopped communication in underwater acoustic communication channels. Results also show that in practical scenarios, the MCSK-FrFDH system with longer symbol length performs better at the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), while the system with larger frequency sweeping range performs better at a high SNR.

Frequency Diversity for OFDM Mobile Communication via Underwater Acoustic Channels

The major constraint on the performance of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （OFDM） based underwater acoustic （UWA） communication is to keep subcarriers orthogonal. In this paper, Doppler estimation and the respective compensation technique along with various diversity techniques were deliberated for OFDM-based systems best suited for underwater wireless information exchange. In practice, for mobile communication, adjustment and tuning of transducers in order to get spatial diversity is extremely difficult. Considering the relatively low coherence bandwidth in UWA, the frequency diversity design with the Doppler compensation function was elaborated here. The outfield experiments of mobile underwater acoustic communication （UWAC） based on OFDM were carried out with 0.17 bit/（s-Hz） spectral efficiency. The validity and the dependability of the scheme were also analyzed.

Self-adjusting decision feedback equalizer for variational underwater acoustic channel environments

Aimed at the abominable influences to blind equaliza-tion algorithms caused by complex time-space variability existing in underwater acoustic channels, a new self-adjusting decision feedback equalization （DFE） algorithm adapting to different under-water acoustic channel environments is proposed by changing its central tap position. Besides, this new algorithm behaves faster convergence speed based on the analysis of equalizers’ working rules, which is more suitable to implement communications in dif-ferent unknown channels. Corresponding results and conclusions are validated by simulations and spot experiments.

A Survey on Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks: Perspectives on Protocol Design for Signaling, MAC and Routing

Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) are often used for environmental and industrial sensing in undersea/ocean space, therefore, these networks are also named underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs). Underwater sensor networks are different from other sensor networks due to the acoustic channel used in their physical layer, thus we should discuss about the specific features of these underwater networks such as acoustic channel modeling and protocol design for different layers of open system interconnection (OSI) model. Each node of these networks as a sensor needs to exchange data with other nodes;however, complexity of the acoustic channel makes some challenges in practice, especially when we are designing the network protocols. Therefore based on the mentioned cases, we are going to review general issues of the design of an UASN in this paper. In this regard, we firstly describe the network architecture for a typical 3D UASN, then we review the characteristics of the acoustic channel and the corresponding challenges of it and finally, we discuss about the different layers e.g. MAC protocols, routing protocols, and signal processing for the application layer of UASNs.

QMCR:A Q-Learning-Based Multi-Hop Cooperative Routing Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Routing plays a critical role in data transmission for underwater acoustic sensor networks(UWSNs)in the internet of underwater things(IoUT).Traditional routing methods suffer from high end-toend delay,limited bandwidth,and high energy consumption.With the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms,many researchers apply these new methods to improve the quality of routing.In this paper,we propose a Qlearning-based multi-hop cooperative routing protocol(QMCR)for UWSNs.Our protocol can automatically choose nodes with the maximum Q-value as forwarders based on distance information.Moreover,we combine cooperative communications with Q-learning algorithm to reduce network energy consumption and improve communication efficiency.Experimental results show that the running time of the QMCR is less than one-tenth of that of the artificial fish-swarm algorithm(AFSA),while the routing energy consumption is kept at the same level.Due to the extremely fast speed of the algorithm,the QMCR is a promising method of routing design for UWSNs,especially for the case that it suffers from the extreme dynamic underwater acoustic channels in the real ocean environment.

Inter-Carrier Interference-Aware Sparse Time-Varying Underwater Acoustic Channel Estimation Based on Fast Reconstruction Algorithm

In this paper,a fast orthogonal matching pursuit(OMP)algorithm based on optimized iterative process is proposed for sparse time-varying underwater acoustic(UWA)channel estimation.The channel estimation consists of calculating amplitude,delay and Doppler scaling factor of each path using the received multi-path signal.This algorithm,called as OIP-FOMP,can reduce the computationally complexity of the traditional OMP algorithm and maintain accuracy in the presence of severe inter-carrier interference that exists in the time-varying UWA channels.In this algorithm,repeated inner product operations used in the OMP algorithm are removed by calculating the candidate path signature Hermitian inner product matrix in advance.Efficient QR decomposition is used to estimate the path amplitude,and the problem of reconstruction failure caused by inaccurate delay selection is avoided by optimizing the Hermitian inner product matrix.Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the computational complexity of the OIP-FOMP algorithm is reduced by about 1/4 compared with the OMP algorithm,without any loss of accuracy.

Null subcarriers based Doppler scale estimation with polynomial interpolation for multicarrier communication over ultrawideband underwater acoustic channels

This paper addresses the extremal problem of the null subcarriers based Doppler scale estimation in underwater acoustic （UWA） orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （OFDM） communication. The cost function constructed of the total energy of null subcarriers through discrete Fourier transform （DFT） is proposed. The frequencies of null subcarriers are identified from non-uniform Doppler shift at each tentative scaling factor. Then it is proved that the cost function can be fitted as a quadratic polynomial near the global minimum. An accurate Doppler scale estimation is achieved by the location of the global scarifying precision and increasing the computation minimum through polynomial interpolation, without complexity. A shallow water experiment is conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. Excellent performance results are obtained in ultrawideband UWA channels with a relative bandwidth of 67%, when the transmitter and the receiver are moving at a relative speed of 5 kn, which validates the proposed method.

MIMO Underwater Acoustic Communication in Shallow Water with Ice Cover

Although multiple-input multiple-output(MIMO) underwater acoustic(UWA) communication has been intensively investigated in the past years, existing works mainly focus on open-water environment. There is no work reporting MIMO acoustic communication in under-ice environment. This paper presents results from a recent MIMO acoustic communication experiment which was conducted in Bohai Gulf during winter. In this experiment, high frequency MIMO signals centered at 10 kHz were transmitted from a two-element source array to a four-element vertical receiving array at 1 km range. According to the received signal of different array elements, MIMO acoustic communication in under-ice environment suffers less effect from co-channel interference compared with that in open-water environment. In this paper, time reversal followed by a single channel decision feedback equalizer is used to process the experimental data. It is demonstrated that this simple receiver is capable of realizing robust performance using fewer hydrophones(i.e. 2) without the explicit use of complex co-channel interference cancelation algorithms, such as parallel interference cancelation or serial interference cancelation.

A Survey of Ranging Algorithms and Localization Schemes in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network

Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network(UASN) has attracted significant attention because of its great influence on ocean exploration and monitoring. On account of the unique characteristics of underwater environment, localization, as one of the fundamental tasks in UASNs, is a more challenging work than in terrestrial sensor networks. A survey of the ranging algorithms and the network architectures varied with different applications in UASNs is provided in this paper. Algorithms used to estimate the coordinates of the UASNs nodes are classified into two categories: rangebased and range-free. In addition, we analyze the architectures of UASNs based on different applications, and compare their performances from the aspects of communication cost, accuracy, coverage and so on. Open research issues which would affect the accuracy of localization are also discussed, including MAC protocols, sound speed and time synchronization.

Precoding Based Channel Prediction for Underwater Acoustic OFDM

The life duration of underwater cooperative network has been the hot topic in recent years. And the problem of node energy consuming is the key technology to maintain the energy balance among all nodes. To ensure energy efficiency of some special nodes and obtain a longer lifetime of the underwater cooperative network, this paper focuses on adopting precoding strategy to preprocess the signal at the transmitter and simplify the receiver structure. Meanwhile, it takes into account the presence of Doppler shifts and long feedback transmission delay in an underwater acoustic communication system. Precoding technique is applied based on channel prediction to realize energy saving and improve system performance. Different precoding methods are compared. Simulated results and experimental results show that the proposed scheme has a better performance, and it can provide a simple receiver and realize energy saving for some special nodes in a cooperative communication.

Evaluation of Underwater Optical-Acoustic Hybrid Network

The deployment of underwater networks allows researchers to collect explorative and monitoring data on underwater ecosystems.The acoustic medium has been widely adopted in current research and commercial uses,while the optical medium remains experimental only.According to our survey onthe properties of acoustic and optical communicationsand preliminary simulation results have shown significant trade-offs between bandwidth,propagation delay,power consumption,and effective communication range.We propose a hybrid solution that combines the use of acoustic and optical communication in order to overcome the bandwidth limitation of the acoustic channel by enabling optical communicationwith the help of acoustic-assisted alignment between optical transmitters and receivers.

Power optimization algorithm for OFDM underwater acoustic communication using adaptive channel estimation

An adaptive channel estimation algorithm for the channel length is proposed to construct a channel estimation model suitable for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing(OFDM)underwater acoustic communication signals for the dependence of traditional channel estimation algorithms on channel length information.This algorithm can be adopted to evaluate channel estimation quality in real time and to adaptively adjust the channel length of the channel estimation algorithm according to the evaluation result,which satisfies the need of accurate estimation of unknown underwater acoustic channels and communication application;based on the study on the relationship between the OFDM communication bit error rate and the subcarrier signal to noise ratio,a self-adjusting optimization scheme for OFDM subcarrier transmitting power is proposed,which realizes underwater communication with the low bit error rate through higher energy efficiency.The validity of the research content is verified through simulation and field experiments.