Kerem Enhos’ PhD Proposal

“Software-Defined Inter-medium Visible Light Communication and Underwater Acoustic Networks”

Committee Members:
Prof. Tommaso Melodia (Advisor)
Prof. Kaushik Chowdhury
Prof. Stefano Basagni
Dr. Emrecan Demirors

Abstract:
“Multi-Domain Operations” paradigm has been receiving significant attention both in military and civilian worlds. To realize this novel paradigm, it is imperative to establish robust communication links to transfer data between devices operating in multiple domains. However, as of today, establishing high data rate, robust, secure, and bi-directional communication links between aerial and underwater assets across the air-water interface is still an open problem. We address these challenges with software-defined visible light networking to establish bi-directional wireless links through the air-water interface. After generating a simulation model for inter-medium communication channel, we also empirically derived an optimal parameter selection for carrierless amplitude and phase (CAP) modulation. Then, we design and prototype a software-defined visible light  communication (VLC) modem and conducted extensive experimental evaluation. Apart from inter-medium communication, software-defined networking can also be leveraged for underwater acoustic communication (UWAC), where we designed and assessed coexistence of multi-dimensional chirp spread spectrum (MCSS) with other UWAC schemes. We first evaluated the performance of the proposed communication scheme in a heterogeneous network setting  where it co-exists with a ZP-OFDM communication link, then in a homogeneous network setting where all links are using MCSS scheme. Finally, we used  this software-defined networking system to implement a single-input  multiple-output (SIMO) system for UWAC modems that are  deployed in a  distributed manner. Then, we conduct a thorough experimental evaluation in  ocean environment for various subcarrier bandwidths and constellations  using three distributed receivers.