A Study Of Using Communication Signals As Sonar Pulses In Underwater Sensor Systems

Sammanfattning: Underwater communication within underwater sensor network is crucial for surveillance of coast and ocean areas. The aim of this report was to examine whether it is realistic to use the communication signal which is sent from one node to another as a sonar pulse, and in such case at what distances. To examine the problem, a system consisting of two nodes and one approaching target was simulated in Matlab. At first, the system tries to detect the target by using a generalized likelihood ratio test, which calculates the probability of a present target from the surrounding sounds. When a target is detected by a node, it estimates the bearing to the target by using beamforming and sends out a communication signal to the other node. The communication signal spreads out in the water, and bounces on the target before it is received by the second node. To calculate the distance, the second node decodes the signal to get the time difference, from which the distance is calculated. In the end, the target's position was estimated with a weighted least square estimator with measurements of the bearing and distance. The result shows that the distance to the target could be estimated with high precision in the given scenario, and that the width of the Cramér-Rao lower bound depends mainly on the variance of the beamforming algorithm. The maximum distance reached up to two kilometers but was mainly restricted by the detection algorithm. In conclusion, the result shows that the communication pulse can be used as a sonar pulse at the tested distances. However, the simulated scenario is a simplified version of the real world so more testing should be performed before a final conclusion can be made.