Ocean current mapping using networked distributed sensors

Abstract

Distributed underwater sensors are expected to provide environmental (oceanographic) monitoring over large areas. As fabrication technology advances, low cost sensors will be available for many applications. The sensors communicate to each other and are networked using acoustic communications. This paper proposes a method for ocean current tomography using distributed networked sensors and presents preliminary experimental results by this approach. Conventional acoustic tomography uses the acoustic sensors distributed on the periphery of an area of interest. Environmental reconstruction requires solving a challenging high dimensional inverse problem, typically requiring substantial computational effort. Given distributed sensors, currents can be constructed locally based on data from neighboring sensors. It is shown using simulated data that results obtained by the proposed method are similar to those obtained by a conventional tomographic method based on peripheral sensors. In addition, one finds that the distributed sensors consume much less energy than that by the conventional tomographic approach. An acoustic communication and networking experiment was conducted near the Sizihwan Bay in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in May 2011. The communication signals are analyzed to measure currents as a function of space and time. The procedure is simple and can be implemented in real-time using in-buoy processing.