Skip to main content

Advertisement

Springer Nature Link
Log in

Doppler Effect in the Acoustic Ultra Low Frequency Band for Wireless Underwater Networks

  • Published:
Mobile Networks and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

It is well known that communication is affected by the change in frequency of a signal for an observer that is moving relative to the source. As a result of the motion of either the source or the observer, successive waves are emitted from a position that may get closer or further to the observer. This phenomenon, known as Doppler effect, also affects underwater acoustic waves used for communications between Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), Underwater Sensors (USs) and remote operators. There have been few studies on the impact of Doppler shift in underwater communications. Assuming underwater communications using acoustic waves, in this paper we study the Doppler effect in relation to the half-power bandwidth and distance in the Ultra Low Frequency (ULF) band (i.e., from 0.3 to 3 kHz). We investigate two specific issues. Firstly, the maximum shift that can be expected on underwater links in the ULF band. Secondly, the maximum frequency drift, and associated patterns, that can happen during the reception of data frames. Numeric simulations are conducted. The analysis is based on scenarios that show the existence of significant Doppler effect. More specifically, we show that Doppler effect, under narrow half-power bandwidth, is significant with respect to the half-power bandwidth in the ULF band, for long distance communications. Furthermore, we show that Doppler effect patterns are not necessarily linear.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Some authors also refer to this range as Low Frequency [5] or Very Low Frequency [7].

  2. The radial velocity of T and S, with respect to R, is the rate of distance change between T and R, and S and R, respectively [2].

References

  1. Barbeau M, Blouin S, Cervera G, Garcia-Alfaro J, Hasannezhad B, Kranakis E (2015) Simulation of underwater communications with a colored noise approximation and mobility. In: 28th IEEE canadian conference on electrical and computer engineering (CCECE 2015), Halifax, NS, 2015, pp 1532–1537

  2. Blouin S, Mahboubi H, Aghdam AG (2017) Long-range passive doppler-only target tracking by single-hydrophone underwater sensors with mobility. In: Migliardi M, Merlo A, Al-HajBaddar S (eds) Adaptive Mobile Computing, chap 4, pp 65–82

  3. Button RW, Kamp J, Curtin TB, Dryden J (2009) A survey of missions for unmanned undersea vehicles https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG808.pdf

  4. Caruso A, Paparella F, Vieira LFM, Erol M, Gerla M (2008) The meandering current mobility model and its impact on underwater mobile sensor networks. In: 27th conference on computer communications (INFOCOM 2008), pp 221–225

  5. Decarpigny J, Hamonic B, Wilson O (1991) The design of low frequency underwater acoustic projectors: present status and future trends. IEEE J Ocean Eng 16(1):107–122

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Freitag L, Partan J, Koski P, Singh S (2015) Long range acoustic communications and navigation in the arctic. In: OCEANS 2015 - MTS/IEEE Washington, pp 1–5

  7. Hixson E (2009) A low-frequency underwater sound source for seismic exploration. J Acoust Soc Am 126 (4):2234–2234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Lurton X (2002) An introduction to underwater acoustics: principles and applications. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  9. Marage JP, Mori Y (2010) Sonar and underwater acoustics. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  10. The Mathworks Inc. Natick (2015) MATLAB version 8.5.0.197613 (R2015a)

  11. Nordrum A (2017) NATO Unveils JANUS, First Standardized Acoustic Protocol for Undersea Systems http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/wireless/nato-develops-first-standardized-acoustic-signal-for-underwater-communications

  12. Otnes R, Asterjadhi A, Casari P, Goetz M, Husøy T, Nissen I, Rimstad K, Van Walree P, Zorzi M (2012) Underwater acoustic networking techniques. Springer, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  13. Otnes R, Voldhaug JE, Haavik S (2008) On communication requirements in underwater surveillance networks. In: OCEANS 2008-MTS/IEEE Kobe techno-ocean, pp 1–7

  14. Porter MB (2011) The BELLHOP manual and user’s guide http://oalib.hlsresearch.com/Rays/index.html

  15. Thorp W (1965) Deep ocean sound attenuation in the sub and low kilocycle per second region. J Acoust Soc Am 38(4):648–654

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Thorp W (1967) Analytic description of the low frequency attenuation coefficient. J Acoust Soc Am 42(1):270

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Thorp W, Browning D (1973) Attenuation of low frequency sound in the ocean. J Sound Vib 26(1):576–578

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Wikipedia (2018) Underwater locator beacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_locator_beacon

  19. Wu B (2015) A correction of the half-power bandwidth method for estimating damping. Arch Appl Mech 85 (2):315–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). We would also like to thank Dr. Stéphane Blouin for fruitful discussions on the topic of this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, Lebanese International University, Bekaa, Lebanon

    A.-M. Ahmad & J. Kassem

  2. School of Computer Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada

    M. Barbeau, E. Kranakis & S. Porretta

  3. Telecom SudParis, CNRS Samovar, UMR 5157, Evry, France

    J. Garcia-Alfaro

Authors
  1. A.-M. Ahmad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. J. Kassem
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  3. M. Barbeau
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  4. E. Kranakis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  5. S. Porretta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  6. J. Garcia-Alfaro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Garcia-Alfaro.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ahmad, AM., Kassem, J., Barbeau, M. et al. Doppler Effect in the Acoustic Ultra Low Frequency Band for Wireless Underwater Networks. Mobile Netw Appl 23, 1282–1292 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-018-1036-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-018-1036-9

Keywords