A NEW APPROACH TO THE DESIGN OF AN UNDERWATER DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM

THIS PAPER PRESENTS A NEW APPROACH TO THE DESIGN OF A SELF-CONTAINED UNDERWATER DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM (UDAS) BASED ON A GENERAL-PURPOSE DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING (DSP) ARCHITECTURE. THE PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE USES A HIGH-PERFORMANCE MILITARY STANDARD SINGLE-CHIP MICROPROCESSOR AS A SYSTEM CONTROLLER. WHEREAS EXISTING SYSTEMS USE SPECIAL-PURPOSE HARDWARE DEDICATED TO SIGNAL PROCESSING FUNCTIONS, IN THE PROPOSED APPROACH THIS HARDWARE IS REPLACED BY SOFTWARE WHICH EMBODIED STANDARD DSP ALGORITHMS. THIS APPROACH ALLOWS THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A RECONFIGURABLE UDAS WHICH MAY BE TAILORED TO APPLICATION-SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS SIMPLY BY CHANGING THE CONTROLLER SOFTWARE. THE PROPOSED DSP ARCHITECTURE IS BASED ON A DESIGN PREVIOUSLY DEVELOPED BY MIKROS FOR USE AS THE CONTROLLER OF A US NAVY LINK-11 DATA TERMINAL. SINCE THE LINK-11 NETWORK USES 16 AUDIO TONES TO MODULATE AN RF CARRIER, IT IS ANTICIPATED THAT A SIMILAR CONTROLLER DESIGN CAN BE USED TO PROVIDE A GENERAL-PURPOSE UDAS. THE PROPOSED PROGRAM WILL DEFINE THE APPLICATION INTERFACES AND ALGORITHMS, INVESTIGATE THE APPLICABILITY OF THE EXISTING DESIGN, ASSESS PACKAGING AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS, AND PRESENT A PRELIMINARY DESIGN OF A COMPACT LOW-POWER RECONFIGURABLE UDAS.