On the Reusability of Postexperimental Field Data for Underwater Acoustic Communications R&D

Field data are often expensive to collect, time-consuming to prepare to collect, and even more time-consuming to process after the experiment has concluded. However, it is often the practice that such data are used for little after the funded research activity that was concomitant with the experiment is completed. Immutability of the original experimental configuration either results in regathering of expensive field data, or in absence of such data, model-dependent analysis that partially captures the real-world dynamics. For underwater acoustic research and development, the standard communication pipeline might be modified to enable greater reusability of experimental field data. This paper first characterizes the necessary modifications to the standard communication pipeline to prepare signals for transmission and subsequent recording such that research trades for different modulation and coding schemes may be undertaken postexperiment, without the need for retransmission of additional waveforms. Then, using the modified mathematical framework, sufficient conditions for reliable postexperimental replay of the environment are recognized. Finally, techniques are discussed to collect sufficient environmental statistics such that subsequent research can be accomplished long after the experiment has been completed, and that results from a given experiment may be reasonably compared with those of another. Examples are provided using both synthetic and experimental data collected from at-sea field tests.