ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Underwater acoustic (UWA) telemetry requires wideband waveforms for anti-multipath which are simultaneously easy to equalize and demodulate. The Walsh/m-sequence waveforms proposed here are robust to multipath and with appropriate time-guard bands do not require equalization. For example, in the UCSB prototype acoustic modem, a data rate of 133 bps is achieved using 8-ary Walsh signaling with an 11.2 msec. symbol duration. Demodulation is performed using noncoherent detection, and hence accurate phase tracking, which is difficult to achieve in the UWA channel, is not required. However, telemetry from unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) is more problematic due to large Doppler shifts resulting from platform motion. A new receiver algorithm based on Matching Pursuits is proposed which combines channel and Doppler shift estimation. Symbol-error rate (SER) simulation results are presented for the UWA modem under realistic Doppler/multipath conditions.

Acoustic modems are the basis for emerging undersea wireless communications networks. US Navy Seaweb technology offers an opportunity to perform undersea navigation and tracking by virtue of node-to-node ranging measurements acquired as a by-product of the acoustic communications protocol. A simple localization algorithm is developed and verified with synthetic data and is then tested with an Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) during an experiment at sea.

Lake trout populations were extirpated from the lower four Great Lakes by 1960 and from Lake Champlain by 1900. The decline of lake trout populations fueled a wave of restoration-based research that spanned the Great Lakes and filled in many of the gaps in our knowledge of lake trout behavior and ecology. However, remarkably little is known about lake trout spawning behavior, even less about sex-specific differences in spawning site use. Lake trout use specific spawning sites, and may return to the same site year after year. More males are caught on spawning sites than females and are present at spawning sites earlier in the spawning season. The focus of this project is to describe the spawning movements of male and female lake trout within and among spawning seasons and spawning sites. I used acoustic telemetry in Lake Champlain to look at specific questions of spawning site fidelity and whether or not there were differences in male and female movements. I hypothesized that males show site fidelity and remain at a preferred site during the spawning season, whereas females 'sample' multiple spawning reefs to maximize their reproductive success. I established an acoustic telemetry array of ten acoustic receivers placed over eight spawning sites and implanted acoustic transmitters (tags) in 44 male and 48 female lake trout over two years. During two spawning seasons, males spent more time on spawning sites than females. Both male and female lake trout that were active on monitored sites during the spawning season selected a single preferred site. There was no difference in the number of sites visited by males and females. Of the lake trout detected during both spawning seasons, most returned to their capture site in the subsequent spawning season, showing evidence of site fidelity. I also developed a binomial rolling residence test (BRR test) to improve the current method of assessing the duration of a fish's residence at a single receiver. I measured daily detection probabilities (DP) at a given distance from a receiver site. The BRR test evaluates a tag's residence every minute by moving a one-hour time window centered on time t across the duration of the data. The daily DPs are incorporated into a binomial test of the null hypothesis that a fish is not within x meters of the receiver at time t. I performed a 48-hour stationary residence test using two onsite tags and two offsite tags and compared the performance of the BRR test to three residence assessment methods found in the literature. The results showed that the BRR test performs better than all of the time-threshold residency evaluations in our 48-hour stationary residence test. We suggest that this method has the potential to advance the field of telemetry by improving the interpretation of telemetry data.

Thesis (M.S. in Engineering Acoustics)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Thomas J. Hofler, Joseph A. Rice. Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54). Also available online.

Simulation modelling was used to quantify the accuracy of positions estimated in a three dimensional underwater environment. Time of arrival differences combined with multilateration methods were used to make positional estimates of a signal source (acoustic tag). The network studied was used to examine position estimates of aquatic organisms within a sensor (hydrophone) array. Hydrophone position uncertainty (distribution and variance), background noise converted to a measurement of signal strength in the form of a signal to noise ratio, a signal to noise ratio threshold and geometry of the hydrophone array were considered. Each of these factors was studied at two levels by way of a 2 to the power of 5 factorial design and analyzed with an ANOVA analysis to determine their influence on three dimensional positioning error. The level of background noise and hydrophone geometry were the two most influential factors in position accuracy. When a high level of background noise was present, it was essential that hydrophone geometry was as close to ideal as possible to ensure accurate position estimates.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Mechanical Engineering)--Naval Postgraduate School, Sept. 2004. / Thesis Advisor(s): Anthony J. Healey. Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-125). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S. in Computer Science)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): Su Wen, Geoffrey Xie. Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-168). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S. in Electrical Engineering and M.S. in Engineering Acoustics) Naval Postgraduate School, December 1996. / Thesis advisor(s): Monique P. Fargues and Ralph Hippenstiel. "December 1996." Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-101). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S. in environmental science)--Washington State University, May 2010. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 11, 2010). School of Earth and Environmental Science." Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-39).

Thesis (M.S. in Engineering Acoustics)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): Joseph A. Rice, Joseph A. Rice. Includes bibliographical references (p. 47). Also available online.