Reinforcement learning-based automated modulation switching algorithm for an enhanced underwater acoustic communication

This paper proposes a new method for classifying Digital Modulations, including the typical PSK (Phase Shift Keying), FSK (Frequency Shift Keying), ASK (Amplitude Shift Keying) as well as the present OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex) modulation. The method is based on the analysis of the time frequency representation of the digitally modulated signals. At first, some experiments have been done to monitor the time frequency representation for different types of modulations. Then a statistical method has been applied and finally a peak detection technique has been employed to classify the modulation types. The method is capable to classify PSK, ASK, FSK 2, FSK 4, FSK 8, FSK16 and OFDM signals. Finally many simulations have been conducted and it is shown that, our method is capable to classify the right modulation against an SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) of less than 5 dB. The classification rate is 100% for PSK and ASK signals, and 96.5% for OFDM signals. No explicit prior information is required for this method. ©2010 IEEE.

In the past decades, researchers/scientists have paid attention to the physical layer of underwater communications (UWCs) due to a variety of scientific, military, and civil tasks completed beneath water. This includes numerous activities critical for communication, such as survey and monitoring of oceans, rescue, and response to disasters under the sea. Till the end of the last decade, many review articles addressing the history and survey of UWC have been published which were mostly focused on underwater sensor networks (UWSN), routing protocols, and underwater optical communication (UWOC). This paper provides an overview of underwater acoustic (UWA) physical layer techniques including cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CP-OFDM), zero padding orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ZP-OFDM), time-domain synchronization orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (TDS-OFDM), multiple input multiple output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM), generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM), unfiltered orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (UF-OFDM), continuous phase modulation orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CPM-OFDM), filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) modulation, MIMO, spatial modulation technologies (SMTs), and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing index modulation (OFDM-IM). Additionally, this paper provides a comprehensive review of UWA channel modeling problems and challenges, such as transmission loss, propagation delay, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and distance, multipath effect, ambient noise effect, delay spread, Doppler effect modeling, Doppler shift estimation. Further, modern technologies of the physical layer of UWC have been discussed. This study also discusses the different modulation technology in terms of spectral efficiency, computational complexity, date rate, bit error rate (BER), and energy efficiency along with their merits and demerits.

Recently, the demand for reliable and high-speed wireless communication has rapidly increased. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a modulation scheme that is the newest competitor against other modulation schemes used for this purpose. OFDM is mostly used for wireless data transfer, although it may also be used for cable and fiber optic connections. However, in many applications, OFDM suffers from burst errors and high bit error rates. This paper presents the utilization of a helical interleaver with OFDM systems to efficiently handle burst channel errors and allow for Bit Error Rate (BER) reduction. The paper also presents a new interleaver, FRF, the initial letters of the authors’ names, for the same purpose. This newly proposed interleaver summarizes our previous experience with many recent interleavers. Fast Fourier transform OFDM (FFT-OFDM) and Discrete Wavelet Transform OFDM (DWT-OFDM) systems are used to test the efficiency of the suggested scheme in terms of burst channel error removal and BER reduction. Finally, the general complexity of the FRF interleaver is different from that of the helical interleaver in terms of hardware requirements. The performance of the proposed scheme was studied over different channel models. The obtained simulation results show a noticeable performance improvement over the conventional FFT-OFDM and the FFT-OFDM systems with the helical interleaver. Finally, the disadvantage of the proposed FRF interleaver is that it is more complex than the helical interleaver.

Ultrasonic signals can be utilized as a viable communication method to transmit information through gas, liquid, and solid channels or a mixed media consisting of a solid interfaced with liquid and/or gas. Underwater communication channels using sound waves cause many challenges, often unforeseen, due to absorption, scattering, refractions, reverberations, multipaths, doppler shifts, temperature, salinity, and acoustic scintillation. Ultrasonic communication through the air is less prone to the environmental challenges that are often encountered in the underwater communications. Ultrasonic communication in solid channels is also adversely affected by absorption, scattering, refractions, reverberations, beam skewing, dispersion, mode conversation, multipaths, and above all these challenges are compounded by the geometrical structure of solids and type of ultrasonic waves. With solid structures many different ultrasonic wave types can be generated including Longitudinal (Compressional), Shear (Transverse), Surface-Rayleigh, Plate-Lamb (Symmetrical or Extensional Mode and Asymmetric or Flexural Mode), Plate-Love, and Stoneley (Leaky Rayleigh). The type of waves is governed by the frequency and angle of the incident waves on a solid structure where the quality of the signal for communication is limited by the composition and geometrical shape of the solids. For this study we have developed a testbed platform using the ZYNQ SoC (System-on-Chip) FPGA by Xilinx which offers reconfigurability and high-performance computational capability, high speed signal converters, power amplifiers for excitation of transducers, low noise receiving amplifiers and high frequency ultrasonic transducers for transmitting and receiving information. Theoretically, ASK (amplitude shift keying) or any form of digital modulation can be realized with the system using the concept of the software-defined ultrasonic communications (SDUC). In practice, the received signal is very complex, primarily caused by dispersion, reverberation, and multipath effects. We have examined SDUC system using AM (Amplitude Modulation), OOK (on and off keying), BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying), QPSK (quadrature phase shift keying), and OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing). This system is tested using differently structured solid channels (such as blocks, plates and pipes); and bitrates and bit rate errors are compared using 2.5 MHz ultrasonic transducers. Furthermore, this paper presents an overview of using EMAT for ultrasonic communications in metal channels.

Modern cellular systems rely on high-capacity and low-latency optical networks to meet ever-increasing data demands. Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN) architectures offer a cost-effective approach for deploying mobile infrastructures. In this work, we propose a flexible and cost-efficient fronthaul topology that combines Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) passive optical networks (PONs) with free-space optical (FSO) links. To enhance overall system performance, we introduce Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) decoding, which provides robust error-correction capabilities against atmospheric turbulence and noise. Our system transmits 20 Gbps, 16-QAM intensity-modulated orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signals, achieving a substantial reduction in bit error rate (BER). Numerical results show that the proposed WDM-PON-FSO architecture, augmented with LDPC decoding, maintains reliable transmission over 2 km under strong turbulence conditions.

SummaryThis paper introduces the concept of spatial and media‐based modulated (SMBM) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) as a potential candidate for highly mobile next generation beyond 5G (B5G) wireless communications. The proposed SMBM‐OFDM technique utilizes not only the transmit antenna and channel state indices but also OFDM subcarriers to improve the system performance under high mobility. In addition, this study sheds light on challenging fast time‐varying channel estimation problem of MBM‐based systems by using the linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) approach due to its optimality to investigate the achievable system performance with the aid of basis expansion modeling. The minimum lower bound on the channel estimation error (Bayesian Cramer–Rao bound) is derived theoretically and shown to be attainable by the considered LMMSE estimator. Moreover, symbol detection performance is provided for different modulation types and higher mobile velocities. Simulation results demonstrate that SMBM‐OFDM system under high mobility is able to provide around 12‐dB performance gains in terms of both channel estimation and symbol detection error compared to conventional spatial modulation (SM)‐OFDM systems without MBM. The presented framework is important due to addressing the high mobility support of SMBM‐OFDM systems for B5G wireless communications in terms of achievable channel estimation and data detection performance.

Power-line Communications (PLC) effectively uses the pervasive power grid as a high data rate communication medium. Despite its advantages, the presence of severe multipath fading and susceptibility to impulsive noise make reliable communication in a PLC system challenging. In PLC systems, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is an attractive choice mainly due to its resilience to multipath fading. However, OFDM signals suffers from large peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) thus resulting in non-linear signal distortions at the transmitter. Therefore, for an OFDM-based PLC system, the combined effect of large PAPR and the presence of impulsive noise results in high bit error rate (BER). This paper proposes the use of precoding at the transmitter to reduce PAPR, and blanking non-linearity at the receiver to mitigate impulsive noise. Precoding is a data-independent and robust PAPR reduction scheme that essentially distributes the power of the individual OFDM symbols over the entire OFDM block. Blanking is an effective impulsive noise mitigation technique that results in better BER performance at the receiver. Simulation results show that, with the combination of precoding and blanking, significant gains in BER performance for an OFDM based PLC system can be obtained with minimal increase of transceiver complexity.

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms have been successfully applied to control tasks associated with unmanned aerial vehicles and robotics. In recent years, safe RL has been proposed to allow the safe execution of RL algorithms in industrial and mission-critical systems that operate in closed loops. However, if the system operating conditions change, such as when an unknown fault occurs, typical safe RL algorithms cannot adapt while retaining past knowledge. Continual RL algorithms have been proposed to address this issue. However, the impact of continual adaptation on the system’s safety is an understudied problem. In this paper, we study the intersection of safe and continual RL. First, we empirically demonstrate that a popular continual RL algorithm, elastic weight consolidation, does not satisfy safety constraints in nonlinear systems subject to varying operating conditions. Specifically, we study the MuJoCo HalfCheetah and Ant environments with velocity constraints and sudden joint loss non-stationarity. Then, we show that an agent trained using constrained policy optimization, a safe RL algorithm, experiences catastrophic forgetting in continual learning settings. With this in mind, we explore a simple reward-shaping method to ensure that elastic weight consolidation prioritizes remembering both safety and task performance for safety-constrained, nonlinear, and non-stationary systems.

Digital modulation is the technique in which the discrete changes in a message signal are imposed onto parameters (amplitude, frequency, or phase) of a sinusoidal carrier wave. This chapter summarizes the essentials of digital transmission and shows how to assess the quality of a digital transmission by revisiting the mathematical foundation for calculating the probability of error, employing the bit error rate metric, and acquiring knowledge of the eye diagram. It introduces binary shift‐keying modulation in digital transmission and describes the modulation and demodulation principles of amplitude shift keying (ASK), frequency shift keying (FSK) and phase shift keying (PSK) modulations. The chapter shows how to assess the transmission quality of ASK, FSK, and PSK. It also discusses the advantages, shortcomings, and applications of ASK, FSK, and PSK.

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is known to be an effective technique to overcome frequency-selective fading caused by multipath propagation and Doppler effect. OFDM divides the transmitted signal into multiple narrowband subcarriers, significantly reducing the negative impact of fading across the frequency spectrum. To improve the reliability and performance of OFDM systems, polar codes, introduced by Erdal Arıkan in 2008, are applied in underwater communications. Another approach is to use the polar-turbo equalization which the equalizer and polar decoder are connected through interleaver and de-interleaver recursively updating each other's information. We propose a model that combines with polar-turbo equalization in OFDM systems. Proposed polar-turbo equalization in OFDM effectively mitigates performance degradation caused by frequency-selective fading and enhances communication reliability in underwater environments. [This research is supported by KRIT grant funded by the Korean government (DAPA) (KRIT-CT-23-035-01, Multi AUV operation Technology for Mine Detection ('23–'28))]

Orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulations are robust to time-varying frequency-selective fading channels. OTFS modulations operate in the delay-Doppler domain whereas two-dimensional (2D) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulations operate in the time-frequency domain. For 2D OFDM modulations in time-varying frequency-selective fading channels, we investigate the pilot pattern design problem, which minimizes the mean square error (MSE) of channel estimation. The MSE lower bound (LB) is theoretically derived to provide the design criterion. Based on the criterion, we show that the LB achieving design can be found by exhaustive 2D pilot location search. Exhaustive 2D search has high computational complexity. To reduce the complexity, sufficient conditions on the existence of LB achieving design are provided to decouple the 2D problem into two one-dimensional (1D) problems. For the 1D problem, we propose the LB achieving design when the number of possible pilot locations is divisible by the number of pilots. Simulation results illustrate that our proposed LB achieving design is superior to the random pilot pattern design and the bilinear interpolation channel estimation method.

Based on the sampling-concatenating operation with any integer interval, a large number of orthogonal subsets are designed for M-ary spread spectrum (MSS) communications with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. Any two sequences in the designed subset are orthogonal to each other, that is, the in-phase cross-correlation (IPCC) between them is equal to zero. Compared with the previous researches, the designed multiple subsets may possess more sequences at the cost of the peak-to-mean envelope power ratio (PMEPR) and inter-subset IPCC, which will be suitable for MSS-OFDM communications where the larger number of sequences means higher data rate. We provide a simple example to show how the designed algorithm works, and the corresponding performance of PMEPR and IPCC is analyzed.

P2P power trading based on reinforcement learning for nanogrid clusters

Underwater wireless optical communication based on multi-pixel photon counter and OFDM modulation

왈시-하다마다 변환(Walsh-Hadamard Transform, WHT)을 적용한 OFDM(Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) 변조방법은 시스템의 PAPR(Peak-to-Average Power Ratio)을 줄여주고, 시스템의 BER(Bit Error Rate) 성능을 향상시키는 장점이 있다. 그러나 기존의 이러한 왈시-하다마다 변환에 기반한 OFDM 시스템은 여전히 비교적으로 높은 PAPR문제가 있다. 그러므로 본 논문에서는 DGT(Data Grouping Technique)이라고 부르는 기술을 제안하고, 이 기술과 왈시-하다마다 변환 기술을 적용하여 PAPR을 더욱 줄여주는 OFDM 시스템을 설계한다. 제안한 DGT기술은 WHT-OFDM뿐만 아니라 일반 OFDM에서 PAPR을 줄여주는 방법들 중에서 큰 단점이 되는 부가정보(side information)가 성능에 대해 독립성을 가진다는 특징이 있다. 컴퓨터 시뮬레이션을 통해 제안한 시스템의 유용성을 검사하고 성능을 검증하였다. The conventional OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) modulation can be combined with WHT (Walsh-Hadamard Transform) to reduce PAPR (Peak-to-Average Power Ratio) and improve BER (Bit Error Rate) performance. However, this WHT-based OFDM system still suffers a relatively high PAPR. Therefore, we suggest a new technique, called DGT (Data Grouping Technique) and design an OFDM system employing it and WHT to further decrease PAPR without the BER performance degradation. h salient property of DGT is the independence of the side information which is inherently a principal drawback of the well-known PAPR reduction techniques for OFDM system as well as WHT-based OFDM. The simulation programs have been also performed to verify the validity of the proposed system.