Abstract
This paper discusses the design and initial testing of a novel hydrophone array system dubbed the Underwater Inflatable Co-prime Sonar Array (UICSA). The UICSA will be a crucial component of an underwater deployable sensing network that can be rapidly deployed using compact autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The UICSA initially is packed in a compact container to fit the payload space of an AUV. After deployment, the UICSA expands to its predetermined full length to acquire sensing data for source localization. More specifically, the mechanical compression of the UICSA is achieved through a non-rigid array support structure, which consists of flexible inflatable segments between adjoining hydrophones that are folded in order to package the UICSA for deployment. The system exploits compression in hydrophone layouts by utilizing a sparse array configuration, namely the co-prime array since it requires fewer hydrophones than a uniform linear array of the same length to estimate a given number of sources. With two-way compression, the storage, handling, and transportation of the compactly designed UICSA is convenient, particularly for the AUVs with limited payload space. The deployment concept and process are discussed, as well as the various UICSA designs of different support structures are described. A comparison of the various mechanical designs is presented and a novel hybrid-based expansion prototype is documented in detail. Laboratory study results of the UICSA prototype are presented that include water-swollen material tests in a pressurized environment and water tank validation of the inflation process. The UICSA prototype also has been deployed in the Harbor Branch channel to validate the performance, the related field test details and source localization results.
Highlights
The state-of-the-art in recent underwater networking technology has been widely accepted and examined [1]
We recently proposed an Underwater Inflatable Coprime Sonar Array (UICSA), with a novel Two-Way Compression (TWC) concept, as a deployable system carried by autonomous vehicles [8]
In the interest of brevity, we only present the details of the 4-element hybrid-based expansion (HBE) based Underwater Inflatable Co-prime Sonar Array (UICSA) prototype; the details of other prototypes are documented in [10, 24]
Summary
The state-of-the-art in recent underwater networking technology has been widely accepted and examined [1]. With technological advances in underwater vehicles over the past decade, sensor deployment is possible with ROVs or AUVs, leading to cost reductions. When using such vehicles for deployment, a sensor node must have a dimension that does not impose any physical restrictions on the vehicle itself and/or hinder its maneuverability [7]. The dimensional compression employs an inflatable structure to reduce the initial physical volume as the array can be packed into low-volume containers carried by AUVs. The algorithmic compression is achieved through the use of a sparse array with hydrophone placement following the co-prime configuration and associated signal processing.
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