International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169

Volume: 4 Issue: 7 12 - 15
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FPGA Based Acoustic Modem for Underwater Communication

Jagdale M.R Puranik V.G.

Associate Professor, Department of Electronics &
PG student, Department of Electronics & Communication
Communication Engineering
Engineering
BhivarabaiSawant Institute of Technology& Research,
BhivarabaiSawant Institute of Technology& Research,
Wagholi Pune, Maharashtra, India
Wagholi Pune, Maharashtra, India
madhuri3jagdale@gmail.com vishalpura@gmail.com

AbstractThe underwater communication modem is based on ultrasound a sensor which gives efficient result underwater applications. System
performs Amplitude shift Key (ASK) also known as On-Off Shift Key (OOK) at the transmitter part and this signal is demodulated at receiver
point with audio amplifier and diode detector. ASK modulation is the simplest type of digital modulation technique. In this carrier signal is
getting modulated with baseband signal so for positive signal it gives level 1 and at negative signal it gives level 0. This design uses
commercial ultrasound transducer of 200 kHz bandwidth. The underwater channel is highly variable; each point can have changes in signal,
which change according to environmental factors as well as the locations of the communicating nodes. So distance vs. voltage of the received
signal is measured. It is observed that voltage decreases with increasing distance.

Keywords Field Programmable Gate Array, Acoustic modem, ASK modulation techniques etc.
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acoustic communication sign due to (ISI) Inter symbol

I. INTRODUCTION Interference.
Nowadays Underwater communication has become the Doppler unfolds: It reasons degradation in overall performance
interesting topic. A concrete example is a sensor network of virtual communication. It generates outcomes: an easy
consisting of freely floating autonomous drifters for frequency translation and continues spreading of frequency.
underwater exploration. This project presents the design The underwater modem consists of 3 major components as
consideration, implementation details and initial experimental underwater transducer, analog transceiver and digital platform
results of modem. This also discusses the various modulation for control and signal processing .The transducer is an
techniques like ASK. This design uses commercial ultrasonic ultrasound sensor for dependable verbal exchange. The sensor
transducer of 200 kHz bandwidth. The underwater channel is has frequency of 200 kHz and it has excessive performance
highly variable; each point can have changes in signal, which and excessive reliability.
change according to environmental factors as well as the Objectives of Paper:
locations of the communicating nodes. Reliable 1) Observe data or message at receiver end which are
communication becomes difficult. Transmitted message can be transmitted from transmitter.
displayed as well as it can be analyzed using different 2) Observe various waveforms at transmitter & receiver
simulation tools at base station. Underwater modem has three 3) To observe results, graphs such as distance v/s peak
parts as an underwater sensor, transceiver (matching pre- voltage.
amplifier and amplifier), a digital platform for control. There Necessity:
is interfacing between sensors and controller i.e. FPGA. Also Nowadays there is a growing interest in underwater
comparison between various output signals is checked. communication which is compactand low cost. This system
Application of underwater sensor node will be in underwater operates on the low power so energy efficient. The sensor used
data collection, pollution monitoring offshore exploration, iswaterproof and corrosion resistant. Hence there are wide
disaster prevention, assisted navigation & tactical surveillance advantages of this system.
application, autonomous underwater vehicles equipped with The main purpose of a communication system is to
sensor will enable to gathering of scientific data. It consists of transfer information from a source to a Destination. A message
variable number of sensor & vehicles that are deployed to signal containing information is used to control parameters of
perform collaborative monitoring task over give area. a carrier signal i.e. the information is embedded onto the
carrier. The carrier could either a sinusoidal wave or a pulse
1.2 Properties of underwater acoustic sensor community: train. At the destination the carrier plus message must be
It uses acoustics waves, electromagnetic waves or optical demodulated so that the message can be received.
waves:
Transmission loss: it is related to attenuation and Geometric II. BLOCK DIAGRAM OF ACOUSTIC MODEM
spreading that is proportional to distance and impartial of An Acoustic modem design a Transmitter and an
frequency. Acoustic Receiver Details about the ultrasonic transmitter
Noise: It of two type guy made noise and ambient noise. and receiver are explained which gives function of
Multipath: a couple of propagation reason to degradation of transmitter and receiver.
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IJRITCC | July 2016, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org
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International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169
Volume: 4 Issue: 7 12 - 15
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ASK MODULATION CIRCUIT
1. System operates at the supply voltage of 12 V which is
regulated to 9 V using 78L09regulators.
2. Ultrasound transmitter receiver piezoelectric transducer of
200 kHz, compact and lightweight.
3. Pulses of 40 kHz from FPGA to modulation circuit.
4. At receiver of transducer, two- stage audio amplifier has
output gain of 60 dB is used. Itoperates on the power
supply of 9 V. This supply is biased at the input to give 4.5
V signal toamplifiers.
Fig.1 Block Diagram of an Underwater Acoustic Modem 5. Envelop detector to convert received signal into pulse.
6. In the signal detector circuit there is a comparator which
1. PC: It is used to give the information signal. Then it is send is internally frequency compensatedand has power supply
through the USB to COM portconverter to AND gate. There of 9V. It detects the original signal with reference voltage
MAX 232 is used as a dual driver or receiver. It is used to of 0.4 V.
convertTTL signal to TIA signal compatible for the circuit. On
PC terminal software is used to transmitand receive the
information.
2. FPGA:The FPGA is a digital platform used to generate the
carrier signal for the modulation.This is for the use of
Fig. 2. Waveform ASK modulation
reconfigurable device to change the frequency of the carrier
signal. It is fastand efficient. It gives signal to AND gate for III. ULTRASOUND SENSORS
OOK operation.
The piezoelectric crystal in the search unit converts the
3. AND Gate for Modulation:There are many different types
reflected sound wave or echoback into electric pulses.
of signals used for underwater communication. Theseinclude
Ultrasonic pulses are also reflected from the back surface of
FSK, PSK, orthogonal frequency direct modulation (OFDM),
thematerial and this signal represents the total distance
and DSSS. While anadaptive modem can ideally switch
travelled. The pulse received from the backsurface can also
between any modulations schemes, for this ASK modulationis
represent the width, length, or thickness of the material
used. ASK is a fairly simple and widely used modulation
depending on itsorientation. Ultrasonic thickness testing
scheme in underwatercommunication due to its intrinsic
measures the wall thicknesses of pipes and vessels
robustness to time and frequency spreading. Our receiver
bymeasuring the total distance travelled by the ultrasonic
usesa non-coherent energy detection demodulation method.
pulses, which is represented by thedistance from the initial
Here I am using the AND gate for the Ask modulation to
pulse or front surface to the back reflection from the back
perform the on-off shift key.The gate is supplied with the 2V
surface.Ultrasonic transmitters and receivers are mainly made
of power supply, the information signal from the user and
from small plates cut from certaincrystals. If no external forces
thecarrier generated from the FPGA is modulated.
act upon such a small plates electric charges are arranged in
4.The inverter is used for the drive of the ultrasonic sensor
certainsymmetry and thus compensate each other. Due to
these input signals transmitted to ultrasonic transmitter.
external pressure the thickness of the smallplate is changed
Finally, the ultrasonic sensor transmits these amplified signals.
and thus the symmetry of the charge. An electric field
Transceiver sensors:
develops and at the silvercoatedfaces of the crystal voltage can
These sensors are piezoelectric ultrasound sensors with
be tapped off. This effect is called Direct PiezoelectricEffect.
frequency of 200 kHz. These are for dualpurpose i.e. it can be
used as both transmitter and receiver. The pair of sensor is
used whichworks under water. These sensors are waterproof
and corrosion resistant and perform reliablecommunication
underwater.
6. Amplifiers:The received signal from the sensor is amplified
with the audio operational amplifier which is atwo stage
amplifier. At first stage 40 dB gain and at second 20 dB gains
so in total it has 60 dBgains. It has a single power supply of
9V. Fig. 3. Piezoelectric Effects caused due to various Circuit
7. Envelop detector:This is demodulation block. Envelop Design & Charging Processes
detector is one of the technique used for demodulation.
Thehalf wave rectifier is used in this to convert waveforms Specifications of sensor:
from NRZ to RZ.
200 kHz of ultrasound piezoelectric sensors, transceiver
8. Comparator: Comparator circuit is an operational amplifier
(dual use).
with single power supply which amplifies thedifference
o Receiver sensitivity 56 dB, range of sensors is 0.2 to 1.2 m
between the positive and negative input. The original baseband
o Capacitance is 380 pF, operating temperature -20 to 70oc.
signal is recoveredfrom this circuit. o Resolution 2mm, storage temperature -30-800c

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IJRITCC | July 2016, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org
_______________________________________________________________________________________
International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169
Volume: 4 Issue: 7 12 - 15
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
IV. CIRCUIT DIAGRAM The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased
preassembled; the open-source IDE canbe downloaded for
free.
Inexpensive - Arduino boards are relatively inexpensive
compared to other microcontrollerplatforms.

TERMINAL: Terminal emulation application for RS-232:

useful and small terminal emulation application for the Serial
port verbal exchange. Terminal can also act like telnet server
and listen on selected TCP port. You can connect to it with
any telnet client program from another computer in network
(or over internet from different location) and see what's going
Fig. 4 Circuit diagram of acoustic modem on in terminal and send commands etc.
Features: -
V. HW/ SW PLATFORM without installation, only single and small .exe file
~300KB
Papilio One XC3s250 Spartan3 we can be the usage of. simple file send, Rx and Tx characters counter
Arduino IDE we will use and Language of programming is baud rate up to 256kbps & custom baud rate
relatively exceptional than VHDL however it ultimately gets up to 64 COM ports, log to file (hex & string)
converted into Bit document which can be loaded into FPGA. 24 custom transmit macros with auto repeat function
This IDE better handles floating factors and could provide u scripting (with graph/visualization support)
higher effects that why we have selected this Spartan-3E remote control over TCP/IP - telnet
FPGA family.
VI. RESULTS:
A) Spartan-3E FPGA Family
Test Environment for Underwater Data Communication:

To test we have used an Aquarium for Underwater data

communication. The test environment for this acoustic data
experiment setup used as a fixed two sensors which is act as
transmitter sensor (in fig. shows input transducer) on one side
and another is act as receiver sensor (in fig. shows output
transducer) and water as transmission medium.

Fig. 5 Spartan 3 QFP package

Specifications
1. Fully Assembled with a Xilinx Spartan 3E and 4Mbit SPI
Flash Memory.
2. Provides an Easy Introduction to FPGA, Digital
Electronics, and System on a Chip design
3. Easily add New Functionality with Wings that Snap onto Fig. 6Water as transmission medium and the ultrasonic
the Board transducer setup
4. Two-Channel USB Connection for JTAG and Serial
Communications The communication experiment is done in following steps
5. Four Independent Power Rails at 5V, 3.3V, 2.5V, and from transmitter part to receiver part. Data transmitted in the
1.2V. laptop it contain serial port. Digital data transmit from
6. Power Supplied by a Power Connector or USB transmitter side sensor. The transmitted signal propagated
7. Input Voltage (recommended): 6.5-15V through the water. Receiver receives this digital data at
8. 48 I/O lines. thereceiver side sensor. Finally this signal is in digital signal
and displayed on the Terminal simulation programmer
B) Arduino: window.
It's an open-source physical computing platform based on a An acoustic modem is used in military application for
simple microcontroller board,and a development security so here transmit one security password from source to
environment for writing software for the board. destination. Data tested on terminal software, here
Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking transmitting data from transmitter is PASSWORD
inputs from a variety of switchesor sensors, and controlling JAGDALE_123&=tested results steps are as follows:
a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. Transmitted data is
Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can PASSWORD JAGDALE_123&=display on terminal
communicate with software running on yourcomputer (e.g. software the terminal window is as follows:
Flash, Processing, and MaxMSP.) Transmitter Window:

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IJRITCC | July 2016, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org
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International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169
Volume: 4 Issue: 7 12 - 15
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to graciously thank Principal and Dr.
Angle sir Head of the Department BSIOTR PUNE, for their
extended support in project. Finally I would like to thank V.G.
Puranik, Associate professor BSIOTR PUNE, who has
provided me with the best knowledge about the project.

REFERENCES
[1] Heungwoo Nam &Sunshin An, Low Power Acoustic Modem
Fig. 7. Snapshot of input on Terminal (Message displayed at for UWC in UWSN, Korea University, Anam-dong, Sungbuk-
transmitter) gu, seoul, korea, Post Code-136701.
[2] MilicaStojanovic, Underwater Acoustic Communication, North
Eastern University, Boston, MA 021115.
[3] B.Benson, Y.Li, R.Kastner and B.Faunee, K.Domand,
D.Kimball, C.Schurgers, Design of Low cost UWAM for
Short Range Sensor Network LA Jolla, LA92093.
[4] Ian F.Akyildiz, Dario Pompili and TommaroMelodia,
Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks: Research Challenges,
Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.
[5] Akyildiz, I.F., Pompili, D., Melodia, T.: Underwater Acoustic
Sensor Networks: Research Challenges. Elseviers Journal of
Ad Hoc Networks 3(3), 257281 (2005)
Fig. 8. Snapshot of output on Terminal (Message displayed at [6] K.Menon, P. Divya, andM. Ramesh, Wireless sensor network
receiver) for river water quality monitoring in India, in Proceedings of
the 3rd International Conference on Computing
Here I have taken the measurements. The voltage at Communication Networking Technologies (ICCCNT 12), pp.
receiver and distance measured between transmitter and 17, July 2012.
receiver are measured. The curve is plotted from the readings. [7] Jurdak, R.; Aguiar, P.; Baldi, P.; Lopes, C.V., "Software
Modems for Underwater Sensor Networks," OCEANS 2007 -
Europe vol., no., pp.1-6, 18-21 June 2007.
[8] L. Freitag, M. Grund, S. Singh, J. Partan, and P. Koski, "The
WHOI Micro-Modem: An acoustic communications and
navigation system for multiple platforms," in IEEE Oceans
Europe. 2005.
[9] Lingjuan Wu, Jennifer Trezzo, DibaMirza, Paul Roberts, Jules
Jaffe, Yangyuan Wang and Ryan Kastner ,Designing an
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IEEE transactions on embedded systems Vol. 4, No. 1, March
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[10] P. Mestre, Member, IAENG, A. Calcada, N. Carvalho, C.
Fig.9 voltage vs distance curve at receiver Serodio, Member, IAENG,P.Couto, J. Matias, Member,
IAENG, P. Melo-Pinto, J. Morais Low-cost Ultrasonic Probe to
VII. CONCLUSIONS Assess Wood Defects and Parameters, the World Congress on
Through related work, we knew the requirement that Engineering Vol. II ,July 2013.
the underwater sensor networks must perform the acoustic [11] Lawrence L. P. Wong, , Albert I. Chen, Andrew S. Logan, and
communication. According to this requirement, this research John T. W. Yeow, An FPGA-Based Ultrasound Imaging
with regard to an acoustic modem has significant meaning System Using Capacitive Micro machined Ultrasonic
when performing acoustic communication. However, the Transducers, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonic, Ferroelectrics,
hardware to support acoustic communication did not exist at and Frequency Control, vol. 59, no. 7, July 2012.
all prior to our work. This work developed an acoustic modem
as hardware to perform acoustic communication.
Thus, the advantages of our acoustic modem are as
follows. First, our acoustic modem is a low- powered acoustic
modem. In the energy consumption perspective, our modem
was the best of all the others. Second, our modem is a low cost
based acoustic modem with the capability of digital data
communication. Because there had been no prior existing
modem with this capability based on low-cost, our modem is
significant in this regard.
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