Full-Duplex for Underwater Acoustic Communications
Lead Research Organisation:
University of York
Department Name: Electronics
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Organisations
Publications
Ahmed A
(2021)
FD-LTDA-MAC: Full-Duplex Unsynchronised Scheduling in Linear Underwater Acoustic Chain Networks
in Applied Sciences
Almanza-Medina J
(2021)
Deep Learning Architectures for Navigation Using Forward Looking Sonar Images
in IEEE Access
Almanza-Medina J
(2022)
Motion Estimation of Underwater Platforms Using Impulse Responses From the Seafloor
in IEEE Access
Almanza-Medina J
(2022)
Sonar FoV Segmentation for Motion Estimation Using DL Networks
in IEEE Access
Dendir S
(2022)
Race, ethnicity and mortality in the United States during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: an assessment.
in Discover social science and health
Gorma W
(2019)
CFDAMA-SRR: A MAC Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks
in IEEE Access
Hamilton A
(2020)
Adaptable Underwater Networks: The Relation between Autonomy and Communications
in Remote Sensing
He P
(2022)
Coarse-to-Fine Localization of Underwater Acoustic Communication Receivers.
in Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
| Description | This project is developing full-duplex technologies to allow simultaneous transmission and reception of signals at the same frequencies. Current systems are limited to using separate frequencies or non-simultaneous transmission. Full-duplex capability could provide up to twice the capacity for communications, for example. A key challenge to achieve full-duplex communication is cancellation of the strong interference from the transmitter into the receiver. A key outcome of the project so far has been effective reduction in the power of this interference to 1/7000000 th in practical experiments conducted in water tanks and lakes. It has been found that the main challenges in providing the full-duplex capability include the time variability of the self-interference channel and nonlinearities in the transmitter and receiver. New techniques have been proposed for dealing with these challenges. Specifically, a new class of adaptive filtering algorithms has been proposed that significantly improves the cancellation performance compared to classical adaptive filters in fast time-varying channels. Special schemes were proposed to deal with the nonlinearity of the power amplifier at the transmitter. A nonlinear adaptive equaliser has been proposed to deal with the nonlinearity of the preamplifier in the receiver. New communication protocols have also been developed to exploit the fill-duplex capability. |
| Exploitation Route | The currently developed capability would allow significantly increased communications capacity for short range underwater acoustic systems, for example, for spread spectrum systems operating at low signal to noise ratio. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Electronics |
| Description | Cooperative Underwater Surveillance Networks (COUSIN) |
| Amount | £550,261 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/V009591/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2021 |
| End | 12/2023 |
| Description | Cyber security for underwater communication |
| Amount | £7,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | British Council |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2019 |
| End | 12/2019 |
| Description | High bandwidth covert (low probability of intercept) underwater acoustic communication |
| Amount | £117,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2019 |
| End | 09/2023 |
| Description | Image processing for sonar applications |
| Amount | £28,968 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of York |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2019 |
| End | 12/2019 |
| Description | Innovating the future of bio-inspired autonomous robot fish for offshore renewable energy inspection |
| Amount | £10,985 (GBP) |
| Organisation | White Rose University Consortium |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | Knowledge exchange and impact enhancement of autonomous biomimetic robot-fish |
| Amount | £7,965 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | Maritime autonomous system anti-submarine barrier (Phase 1) |
| Amount | £100,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2018 |
| End | 11/2019 |
| Description | Progeny Framework Task 19ss, Phorcys Phase 1: Work Package 1 - Testbed & Evaluation Facility |
| Amount | £238,827 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Thales Group |
| Department | Thales UK Limited |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2021 |
| End | 12/2021 |
| Description | Progeny Framework Task 19ss, Phorcys Phase 1: Work Package 3 - Networking |
| Amount | £68,706 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Thales Group |
| Department | Thales UK Limited |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2020 |
| End | 08/2020 |
| Description | Progeny Framework Task 19ss, Phorcys Phase 1B: Work Package 3 - Networking |
| Amount | £139,565 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Thales Group |
| Department | Thales UK Limited |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2021 |
| End | 10/2021 |
| Description | UKRI CoA Extension to R1880501 EPSRC FULL-DUPLEX |
| Amount | £78,492 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2020 |
| End | 09/2021 |
| Description | York-Haifa Underwater Acoustic Communications Experiments |
| Amount | £6,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Royal Society |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2018 |
| End | 11/2019 |
| Title | Channel modelling tool for underwater acoustic network research |
| Description | This MATLAB based channel modelling tool aims to achieve a trade-off between the flexibility of low level channel modelling via beam tracing (e.g. BELLHOP) and the convenience of automated channel modelling via WOSS. It provides MATLAB simulation code and accompanies a paper published in IEEE Access (10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3011620). It focuses on several key characteristics of the UWA channel most relevant for networking protocol design: signal attenuation, propagation delay, multipath fading and delay spread. As such, the proposed simulation framework does not aim to replace the established fully integrated platforms, such as WOSS, nor to replace the standard BELLHOP beam tracing interface designed more widely for ocean acoustics research. Rather, the main purpose of the simulation framework is to make beam tracing accessible for the underwater networking research community. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | 579 full text views. |
| URL | https://codeocean.com/capsule/2136333. |
| Title | Waymark simulator |
| Description | Software simulator for virtual full-duplex signal transmission in the underwater acoustic channel. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The development cycle for full-duplex techniques has been significantly reduced. A wider variety of underwater scenarios can now be investigated. Investigation of full-duplex techniques in totally controllable environments is now possible. Full-duplex techniques can now be compared in exactly the same acoustic environments and conditions. |
| URL | https://www.york.ac.uk/electronic-engineering/research/communication-technologies/underwater-network... |
| Description | Harbin University |
| Organisation | Harbin Engineering University |
| Country | China |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This is a collaboration with several research groups within the Harbin Engineering University. Several academic visitors were hosted by my research team. Due to this collaboration, a number of joint journal and conference papers have been published. |
| Collaborator Contribution | A number of joint journal and conference papers have been published. |
| Impact | Some of the jointly published papers: 1. Y. Zhang, J. Li, Y. Zakharov, X. Li, and J. Li, "Deep learning based underwater acoustic OFDM communications", Applied Acoustics, Elsevier, vol.154, 01 Nov 2019, pp. 53 - 58. 2. Y. Zhang, T. Wu, Y. Zakharov, and J. Li, "MMP-DCD-CV based sparse channel estimation algorithm for underwater acoustic transform domain communication system", Applied Acoustics, Elsevier, vol.154, 01 Nov 2019, pp. 43 - 52. 3. Q. Wu, Y. Li, Y. Zakharov, W. Xue, and W. Shi, "A kernel affine projection-like algorithm in reproducing kernel Hilbert space", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, published on 15 Oct 2019, pp.1-5. DOI: 10.1109/TCSII.2019.2947317 4. X. Zhang, T. Jiang, Y. Li, and Y. Zakharov, "A novel block sparse reconstruction method for DOA estimation with unknown mutual coupling", IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 23, No. 10, 17 July 2019, pp. 1845 - 1848. 5. Y. Zhang, J. Li, Y. Zakharov, J. Li, Y. Li, C. Lin, and X. Li, "Deep learning based single carrier communications over time-varying underwater acoustic channel", IEEE Access, vol. 7, 20 March 2019, pp. 38420 - 38430. 6. Y. Zhang, Y. Zakharov, and J. Li, "Soft-decision-driven sparse channel estimation and turbo equalization for MIMO underwater acoustic communications", IEEE Access, vol.6, 17 Jan 2018, pp. 4955 - 4973. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | IMT Atlantique |
| Organisation | IMT Atlantique |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Hosted PhD researcher at the University of York for a period of 3 months. Gave invited talk at IMT Atlantique. Jointly wrote proposal for PhD studentship for funding from DGA/DSTL. Contributed to a joint conference paper, presented at UCOMMS 2018. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Two researchers visited our research group. Jointly wrote proposal for PhD studentship for funding from DGA/DSTL. Prepared joint conference paper, presented at UCOMMS 2018. |
| Impact | Conference paper published at UCOMMS conference 2018. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | NATO-CMRE |
| Organisation | NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation |
| Country | Italy |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Invited a colleague to organise a special session at the UACE conference 2019. Invited a colleague to co-edit a special issue of the MDPI Journal on Sensor and Actuator Networks on the subject of underwater networking. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Participation in conference special session organisation and journal special issue. |
| Impact | Organisation of conference special session and journal special issue. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Thales UK |
| Organisation | Thales Group |
| Department | Thales UK Limited |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Visibility of our research activities at York. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Thales are supporting research proposals by offering use of trials facilties, access and loan of equipment, staff time etc. They are part funding an EPSRC iCASE studentship. |
| Impact | iCASE award. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | University of Haifa |
| Organisation | University of Haifa |
| Country | Israel |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Invited to give a presentation at a workshop organised by the University of Haifa. Have a joint project funded by the Royal Society. Provided signals and planned sea experiments for a joint paper. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Have a joint project funded by the Royal Society. Carried out sea experiments for a joint paper. |
| Impact | Royal Society grant successful. Journal paper submitted to IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | XIamen University |
| Organisation | Xiamen University |
| Country | China |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Prepared signals and planned sea experiment. Prepared two papers. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Carried out sea and water tank experiments and contributed to two joint papers. |
| Impact | Published paper in UCOMMS conference 2018. Submitted journal paper to IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Attendance (with stand) of UK-RAS International Robotics Showcase |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This event brought the international community together on the subject of robotics and autonomous systems, including use of such systems in marine environments. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.ukras.org/robotics-week/international-robotics-showcase-2019-programme/ |
| Description | DSTL workshop on underwater communications |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Ben Henson, Nils Morozs and Paul Mitchell contributed to sessions on underwater acoustic communications and led a session on underwater networking for this workshop held at the National Oceanographic centre. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invited talk (with associated paper) at the Underwater Acoustics Conference & Exhibition |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talk abstract: Full-duplex (FD) underwater acoustic (UWA) communication has significant potential in increasing the capacity of acoustic links, but it suffers from severe self-interference (SI) caused by the near-end transmission. Existing SI cancellation techniques include analogue cancellation, digital cancellation and antenna beamforming. Among those techniques, the digital cancellation has the lowest complexity. However, the reported digital SI cancellation performance is limited. To achieve a higher performance, the non-linearity of power amplifier (PA) should be taken into account. Here we use the digitalized PA output as the reference signal for SI estimation to reduce the effect of the non-linear distortions. Such a system architecture allows us to use a low-complexity linear adaptive filter for SI cancellation. Specifically, we use the recursive least-squares (RLS) algorithm with dichotomous coordinate descent (DCD) iterations. This results in a low-complexity SI canceller. As observed from the experimental results, the choice of the sampling time is crucial to the SI cancellation performance. In this paper, we present the digital SI cancellation scheme based on the RLS- DCD algorithm with the use of PA output. To achieve robust SI cancellation performance, the PA output is oversampled to twice of the symbol rate, de-multiplexed into two branches with digital SI cancellation, and then combined based on the residual variance estimates in the two branches. The SI cancellation performance is investigated by conducting experiments in an indoor water tank and in a shallow lake. The tank experiments show that up to 66 dB of SI can be cancelled using the proposed scheme, which is high compared to existing FD designs. Meanwhile, up to 56 dB of SI is cancelled in the lake experiments. The difference in the SI cancellation performance is due to faster varying SI channels in the lake experiments. Both the water tank and lake experimental results show robust SI cancellation performance of the proposed scheme regardless of the choice of sampling time. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://www.uaconferences.org/ |
| Description | Invited workshop presentation at DSTL Fort Halstead |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | A presentation was given on underwater acoustic network research developments in a plenary session. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | JANUS NATO standard workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | To bring together experts to discuss developments with regard to standards for underwater acoustic communication, including future requirements. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Member of CETO Community |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Working group set up by DSTL to bring together interested and active parties involved in underwater communications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Plenary conference talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Abstract of invited talk: The underwater environment makes the design and deployment of networks particularly challenging. Acoustic signals provide a means of communicating over long distances, but the available bandwidth (and thereby fundamental capacity) is limited, especially over a longer range. Time-varying multi-path propagation generates significant spatial and temporal variation in received signal power, and the slow propagation speed of acoustic waves introduces significant latency. Achieving reliable and efficient communication is dependent on a suitably designed medium access control protocol, and in many instances, a multi-hop routing protocol. This talk will provide an insight into alternative approaches in medium access control, showing how some of the underlying challenges can be addressed for particular types of network. A distinct approach to underwater networking will be proposed, based upon the use of reinforcement learning to provide inherent adaptation to time-varying conditions in distributed networks. An example will show how reinforcement learning can be used to provide efficient medium access control. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://wuwnet.acm.org/2019/ |
| Description | Progeny Framework |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We are a member of this framework run by QinetiQ. It's purpose is to manage and coordinate projects for DSTL, with members of the framework collaborating and bidding for DSTL funds in underwater and above water maritime systems. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |