The MITRE undersea sounding experiment 2016

This talk describes the MITRE Undersea sounding experiment (MUSE16) conducted in Narragansett Bay from September 12-23, 2016, where acoustic communication, localization waveforms, and signal processing techniques were explored. This experiment utilized newly developed acoustic buoys which were designed and built by the University of Rhode Island (URI) Ocean Engineering Dept. in collaboration with the MITRE Corporation. The buoys use Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) for localization and time synchronization and are capable of both transmitting and receiving acoustic data in the range of 8-18 kHz. The buoys were designed to further research in the areas of acoustic communications, channel modeling, and continuous active sonar (CAS). For the communication and channel modeling experimentation, modulated M-sequences of various sequence length were transmitted to explore channel characterization and communication enhancements. For the CAS experimentation, Linear Frequency Modulated (LFM) chirps of various bandwidths and center frequencies were explored as well as utilization of several underwater targets. A description of the prototype buoys including hardware, software, experimental setup, types of data collected, as well as some initial results will be discussed.