Ferial El-Hawary, P.Eng., F.IEEE, F.EIC, F.MTS
Tutorials Chair
MTS-IEEE Oceans 2007 Vancouver Steering Committee
BH Engineering Systems Limited
e-mail: F.El-Hawary@ieee.org

For more information on the tutorial program, please contact the Tutorial Chair, Ferial El-Hawary, at F.El-Hawary@ieee.org.

T1 - AUV Technology and Application Basics
AUV Application Basics is a short course that provides an overview of current AUV technologies and operations. The objective is to provide a basic understanding of what available AUV systems provide and the best practices for their use. The class is targeted at scientists interested in using AUVs for oceanographic applications. The attendee will gain basic understanding of AUV types, technologies, terminology, and navigation techniques, including discussion of the comparative strengths of AUVs and alternative methods of data collection. The attendee will also be provided an understanding of tradeoffs in AUV operations, including power estimation, endurance considerations, and mission structure to acquire the desired data sets. Key points are illustrated by applications and results from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's (MBARI) Dorado AUV and other AUV operations. Topics include: Basic AUV technology, AUV at-sea Operation, Payload Considerations, Mission Planning, Upper and Mid-Water AUV missions, Benthic and Mapping AUV missions, Data Collection and Reduction, AUV Integration into Sampling Networks, and a look at coming AUV advances. The interactive format, using the materials provided, allows the attendee discussion time for relevance and demonstration purposes regarding real or potential AUV plans.

Intended Participants:
This class is intended for scientists interested in applying AUVs to particular problems, persons interested in AUV applications and the impact of AUV technology, as well as graduates in oceanographic fields seeking a broad understanding regarding the application of AUV platforms.

Presenter Bio:
William J. Kirkwood  is currently the Associate Director of Engineering at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) located in Monterey Bay, California. Bill has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a MS in Computer Science which he has applied to controls and automation of electromechanical systems and robotics since 1978. Bill has been with MBARI for 16 years as a lead mechanical engineer and program manager developing the Tiburon remotely operated vehicle and Dorado class autonomous underwater vehicles. Bill focus currently is developing underwater instrumentation for science to look at hydrates and anthropogenic CO2 ocean acidification issues.

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T2 - Acoustic seabed classification with multibeam and sidescan images
Acoustic seabed classification is the organization of the sea floor and shallow subsurface sediment into discrete classes based on information in the echoes.  Geoacoustic sediment properties such as grain size and porosity are not available from acoustic backscatter alone, but the survey area can be segmented into regions of similar acoustic character. Systematically exploiting details in backscatter is the basis of acoustic segmentation.

This tutorial presents theory and applications of image-based acoustic classification, from the early papers through to recent applications.  The acoustic principles of classifying with echoes from single beams at normal incidence are presented first, since they relate to the principles of image classification.  Near nadir, the amplitudes and shapes of sounder echoes are rich in sediment information. Away from vertical incidence, echoes carry sediment information in their amplitudes and their noise characteristics, but not in their shapes.  Echoes from imaging sonars, with their wide horizontal beamwidths, become rasters in sonar images, so noise in these echoes becomes image texture.  Macro-roughness such as sand waves and changes in sediment also contribute to texture. Image amplitude and texture are both heavily influenced by sediment type and are exploited for segmentation.

Sonar calibration is not necessary for image-based acoustic classification.  Image amplitudes are made consistent throughout a survey, but remain in relative, not absolute, units.  Since calibrating imaging sonars is challenging, the ability to use systems that need only be consistent offers cost-effective practical classification for military and civil purposes.

Topics in this tutorial include:

• Quality control, suppressing system artifacts.
• Compensating images for beam patterns and grazing angle effects.
• Features that capture amplitude and texture characteristics.
• Classification with amplitude: backscatter, backscatter vs. grazing angle.
• Classification with texture: Pace, Haralick, fractal, wavelet.
• Differences between classifying multibeam and sidescan images: resolution, using bathymetric data for compensation, benefits of images stitched together from backscatter in beams.
• Supervised classification, training sets.
• Unsupervised classification, PCA, manual and automated clustering.
• Using non-acoustic data to relate acoustic classes to sediment geoacoustic properties.
• Categorical interpolation.
• Maps with acoustic classes in similarity colours.

The techniques presented in this tutorial are wide ranging, and do not concentrate on a selected technical approach. Participants in this tutorial can expect to gain a thorough understanding of the principles and practice of image-based sediment classification.

Presenter Bio:
Dr. Jon Preston (PhD, University of British Columbia) is Senior Scientist at Quester Tangent Corporation, Sidney, BC, and an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria. Since joining QTC in 1998, he has led the development of software suites for rigorous statistical classification of multibeam and sidescan images, interpolation and visualization of acoustic classes, and automated objective clustering through simulated annealing.

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T3 - Signal Processing Methods for Underwater Acoustic Communications
Wireless information transmission through the ocean is one of the enabling technologies for the development of future ocean-observation systems, whose applications include gathering of scientific data, pollution control, climate recording, detection of objects on the ocean floor, and transmission of images from remote sites. Implicitly, wireless signal transmission is crucial for control of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) which will serve as mobile nodes in the future information networks of distributed underwater sensors. Wireless communication provides advantages of collecting data without the need to retrieve instruments, and maneuvering underwater vehicles and robots without the burden of cables.

Acoustic wireless communications are governed by three factors: limited bandwidth, time-varying multipath propagation, and low speed of sound in the ocean. Together, these factors result in a communication channel of poor quality and high latency, thus ironically combining the worst properties of mobile radio and satellite channels. In addition, because acoustic propagation is best supported at low frequencies, efficient underwater acoustic systems are inherently ultra-wideband. To achieve high information throughput on these channels, coherent modulation/detection techniques must be considered because of their bandwidth efficiency. Signal processing methods for underwater acoustic channels are based on the principles similar to those for radio communications; yet, they differ substantially due to the amount of time-spreading introduced by the channel, as well as frequency-spreading introduced by the system mobility.

Bandwidth-efficient underwater communications have been a topic of extensive research over the past decade, resulting in the development of first high speed underwater acoustic modems. In this lecture, we focus on signal processing methods for adaptive equalization, digital synchronization, and multichannel combining for bandwidth-efficient underwater communication systems. We also address methods for multiple-access underwater communications, which form the basis of future underwater wireless communication networks, and discuss the need for scalable network architectures that provide efficient use of channel resources by a large number of AUVs. Finally, we outline the principles used in today's real-time implementation of these techniques. The performance of various techniques is discussed through a series of experimental results, which include transmission over distances ranging from a few kilometers in shallow water to hundreds of kilometers in deep water, at highest bit-rates demonstrated to date.

Presenter Bios:
Milica Stojanovic graduated from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 1988, and received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, in 1991 and 1993. She is currently a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Her research interests include digital communications theory and statistical signal processing, and their applications to mobile radio and underwater acoustic communication systems. Milica is an Associate Editor for Communications with the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society.

Lee Freitag holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks which he received in 1986 and 1987 respectively. He is currently a Senior Engineer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where he has worked on projects related to underwater acoustics for fifteen years. His research programs focus on underwater acoustic communication and navigation with a strong focus on UUVs, sensors and submarine systems.

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T4 - Airborne Hyperspectral Imaging
This half day workshop will focus on understanding basic hyperspectral technology and will cover what one should know when getting ready to undertake a hyperspectral project. Project planning will be covered in detail with emphasis on what pitfalls to avoid in order to end up with favorable results. The workshop will include examples from several recent projects undertaken by Mr. Ripley's firm.

Presenter Bio:
Herb Ripley is a Canadian citizen and is formally trained in geography and remote sensing. He has been active in the remote sensing/geomatics field for over twenty five years. During that period of time he has had the opportunity to work on numerous projects at a regional, national and international level. Herb is President of Hyperspectral Imaging Limited. (HIL), a firm where approximately 50% of its project work is done internationally. Many of the projects undertaken by HIL have a strong coastal and/or environmental focus, i.e. mapping the Peruvian rainforest for an environmental impact assessment, mapping coastal areas of St Lucia to determine the impact level of human activities or studying the effects of El Nino on coral reefs in French Polynesia. HIL also provides high resolution digital photography and HIL works mainly within the forestry, agriculture and engineering communities. Herb has been an invited lecturer on remote sensing at local, national and international educational institutes, has published numerous technical papers at international scientific conferences and has been recognized by the Remote Sensing Society (U.K. based) by being named a Fellow. Herb is or has been a strong participant in such industry groups as the Geomatics Industry Association of Canada (GIAC) (served as Board member), the Geomatics Association of Nova Scotia (GANS) (Director, Vice President and President), the Alliance for Marine Remote Sensing (AMRS) (sat on the organizing committee) and was most recently AMRS's President. In 1995 he was the founding President of the revitalized Champlain Institute and served a second term as President. Herb was recently elected the Chair of the Marine Technology Society's Remote Sensing Committee.

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T5 - Sonar Signal / Image Processing and Communication
This half-day workshop will offer in-depth instruction and training on the latest features in SonarWiz.MAP Chesapeake's full featured sidescan and sub-bottom data acquisition and mosaic system. The morning session will be a complete tutorial on all of the features of SonarWiz.MAP followed by an afternoon break-out session with the trainer. This is a hands-on class for seasoned users as well as newcomers, so bring your laptop and be prepared to learn new things about your next favorite application. The limited class size will offer a chance for personalized instruction and training on real-time acquisition and post-processing of sidescan and sub-bottom data.

What You Will Learn

Real-time Mosaic Processing Techniques

• Gain knowledge on how to quickly configure a real-time sonar survey.
• Configuring navigation sensors, fathometer and magnetometer.
• Try out the survey line planning and management tools.
• Master base map and map overlay tools.
• Utilize the built-in QC controls

Mosaic Post-Processing Techniques

• Ascertain ways to produce high-quality GIS compatible mosaics, web sites and reports.
• Understand the geodesy options
• Try out  the point, polyline and polygon feature digitizing tools
• Master the contact capture, analysis and reporting tools
• Produce high-resolution mosaics in GIS compatible format.

Sub-bottom Data Processing

• Acquiring sub-bottom data
• Generating image sections from SEG-Y and other industry file formats
• Picking 3-D acoustic reflectors and saving in CAD, GIS and ASCII formats

One-on-one break out sessions with Chesapeake engineers

• Come prepared with questions about features that have puzzled you.  Bring your own data, if you would like.

Presenter Bio:
John Gann began his career in the marine industry in 1985 with the USGS Marine Facility in Redwood City, CA. In 1991, he founded Chesapeake Technology, Inc. initially providing software consulting services and later venturing into product development. With over 25 years of marine technology experience, John has evolved Chesapeake Technology into a company that provides high performance yet affordable software solutions while consistently providing a personal level of service and support to each customer. John has delivered software development, consulting and training to navies, law enforcement agencies and sonar users all over the world.

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T6 - High-Frequency Over-The-Horizon Radar Applications in Oceanography
During the last decade, High-Frequency (HF) radar remote sensing of oceanographic parameters became more and more importrant. These radar systems are able to monitor large areas of the ocean, far behind the horizon. HF radar networks are currently being installed along the east- and west-coasts of the US to form the future monitoring systems. This tutorial is split into three parts:

A. Basic Physics of HF Radar:
Electromagnetic wave propagation, both groundwave and skywave, dependency on ionospheric conditions, scattering processes at the ocean surface, algorithms to derive surface current, ocean waves, and wind direction.

B. Technical Solutions:
Range resolution by Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) modulation and by pulses, azimuthal resolution by beam forming and by direction finding; advantages and limitations of the different technologies; algorithms to reduce the impact of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI).

C. Application of HF Radar Monitoring Systems:
How to set up a monitoring system by combining fine-scale ocean current models with HF radar measurements by data assimilation as demonstrated within the European project "European Radar Ocean SEnsing" (EuroROSE); algorithms required for HF radar networks; ship detection and tracking algorithms for HF radars.

Presenter Bio:
Klaus-Werner Gurgel (IEEE M'94) received the diploma in electrical engineering from the university of Hannover, Hannover, Germany, in 1980 and the Ph.D. in geophysics from the Geophysical Department, University of Hamburg, in 1993. From 1980 to 1985, he was responsible for the technical development and deployment of the University of Hamburg's HF radar during numerous experiments, which at that time was based on NOAA's Coastal Ocean Dynamics Applications Radar (CODAR). From 1985 to 1993, he was working on a shipborne version of the CODAR for applications at theArctic Front. In 1996, he developed a new HF radar system called WEllen RAdar (WERA) within the European Union (EU) funded project "Surface Current And Wave Variability Experiment" (SCAWVEX), which was later on used within the EU funded projects "European Radar Ocean SEnsing" (EuroROSE) and "Weather Information Network, Guidance, and Supervision onboard Ships" (Wings-for-Ships). Ater a technology transfer to industry, WERA is now commercially available and applied by several universities and institutions worldwide.

Dr. Gurgel currently is a research scientist at the University of Hamburg, Institute of Oceanography, and involved within numerous projects on radar remote sensing. Since November 2004, he is Adjunct Professor at the Division of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Miami, Fl, USA.

T7 - End User Applications of Underwater Cable and Connectors
Underwater cables and connectors provide system flexibility, ease of service, and other design advantages for undersea equipment. This one-day short course will help end-users identify and prioritize critical decisions that will lead to the best connector and cable system for their defined application. Leaders in underwater cables, connectors, and testing will present a straightforward full day session to help both end-users and manufacturers achieve success by speaking the same language. Attendees leave with a working knowledge and ability to specify underwater cable and connectors for their harsh environment applications, learning from experiences in the factory and field. Course notes will be provided, and technical reference material will be provided to all attendees on CD.

Topics to be covered include:

• Application and field requirements
• mechanical design
• materials
• electrical design
• cable construction
• bonding
• EM terminations, breakouts
• writing specifications, existing references
• QA/QC
• testing
• thoughts on "interchangeability"
• pricing and delivery
• Advanced designs: Ethernet, fiberoptic, underwater mateable

Oceans2007 exhibitors involved in underwater cables and connectors will be invited to have tabletop displays and discuss applications with attendees at breaks.

Presenter Bios:
Brock Rosenthal is the president and founder of Ocean Innovations (LaJolla, CA) where for the past 13 years he has been a distributor of underwater connectors and cables. Brock has helped numerous end users clearly define their requirements and spec underwater interconnections.

Kevin Hardy is a Director of Engineering at DeepSea Power & Light (San Diego, CA). Before joining DSPL, Kevin was a Senior Development Engineer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography where he worked for over 34 years. Kevin has designed ocean sampling and sensing devices for scientists from all disciplines, and deployed them in locations from Arctic Circle to the southern oceans, from the surface to the deepest ocean trenches.

Cal Peters is the Director of Engineering for Falmat (San Marcos, CA), a manufacturer of custom cables for Subsea and other applications. He has 32 years experience in the design and manufacture of EM, signal, power, faired, and neutrally buoyant underwater cables for diverse applications, including towed instruments, moorings, ROVs, and manned vehicles.

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T8 -  Bayesian Signal Processing: Classical, Modern and Particle Filtering Methods
In the real world, systems designed to extract signals from noisy measurements are plagued by errors evolving from constraints of the sensors employed, by random disturbances and noise and probably, most common, by the lack of precise knowledge of the underlying physical phenomenology generating the process in the first place. Methods capable of extracting the desired signal from hostile environments require approaches that capture all of the "a priori" information available and incorporate them into a processing scheme. This approach is typically model-based employing mathematical representations of the component processes involved. In this short course we develop the Bayesian approach to statistical signal processing in a tutorial fashion including the "next generation" of processors that have recently been enabled with the advent of high speed/high throughput computers. The course commences with an overview of Bayesian inference from batch to sequential processors. Once the evolving Bayesian paradigm is established, simulation-based methods using sampling theory and Monte Carlo realizations are discussed. Here the usual limitations of nonlinear approximations and non-Gaussian processes prevalent in classical nonlinear processing algorithms (e.g. Kalman filters) are no longer a restriction to perform Bayesian inference. Next, importance sampling methods are discussed and shown how they can be extended to sequential solutions. With this in mind, the concept of a particle filter, a discrete nonparametric representation of a probability distribution, is developed and shown how it can be implemented using sequential importance sampling/resampling methods to perform statistical inferences yielding a suite of popular estimators such as the conditional expectation, maximum a-posteriori and median filters. Finally, a set of applications are discussed comparing the performance of the particle filter designs with classical implementations (Kalman filters). Participants will be introduced to a variety of statistical signal processing techniques coupled with applications to demonstrate their capability.

COURSE OUTLINE

1. Introduction

 2. Background into Bayesian approach

 3. Monte Carlo (MC) methods for Bayesian inference

 4. Sequential Bayesian processor (SBP)

 5. Model-based signal processing: (Kalman filters)

 6. Bayesian approach to state-space processors

 7. Simulation-based MC approach to SBP

 8. Particle filtering for SBP

 9. Performance analysis

 10. Applications: towed array, normal-modes in shallow water, etc.

 11. Summary

Presenter Bio:
James V. Candy is the Chief Scientist for Engineering and former Director of the Center for Advanced Signal & Image Sciences at the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy received a commission in the USAF in 1967 and was a Systems Engineer/Test Director from 1967 to 1971. He has been a Researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1976 holding various positions including that of Project Engineer for Signal Processing and Thrust Area Leader for Signal and Control Engineering. Educationally, he received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Control System Engineer in the state of California. He has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, University of Santa Clara, and UC Berkeley, Extension teaching graduate courses in signal and image processing. He is an Adjunct Full-Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Candy is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and recently elected as a Life Member (Fellow) at the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall College). He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies. He was elected as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Candy received the IEEE Distinguished Technical Achievement Award for the "development of model-based signal processing in ocean acoustics." Dr. Candy was also recently selected as a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for oceanic signal processing as well as presenting an IEEE tutorial on advanced signal processing available through their video website courses. He was recently nominated for the prestigious Edward Teller Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He has published over 200 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports as well as written three texts in signal processing, "Signal Processing: the Model-Based Approach," (McGraw-Hill, 1986) and "Signal Processing: the Modern Approach," (McGraw-Hill, 1988), "Model-Based Signal Processing," (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2006). He was the General Chairman of the inaugural 2006 IEEE Nonlinear Statistical Signal Processing Workshop held at the Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has presented a variety of short courses and tutorials sponsored by the IEEE and ASA in Applied Signal Processing, Spectral Estimation, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Applied Model-Based Signal Processing, Applied Acoustical Signal Processing, Model-Based Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing and most recently Bayesian Signal Processing for IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society. He has also presented short courses in Applied Model-Based Signal Processing for the SPIE Optical Society. He is currently the IEEE Chair of the Technical Committee on "Sonar Signal and Image Processing" and was the Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on "Signal Processing in Acoustics" as well as being an Associate Editor for Signal Processing of ASA (on-line). His research interests include Bayesian estimation, identification, spatial estimation, signal and image processing, array signal processing, nonlinear signal processing, tomography, sonar/radar processing and biomedical applications.

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T9 - Signal Waveform Design for Underwater Acoustic Communications
The tutorial will cover design of signalling waveforms that are suitable for utilisation in underwater acoustic (UA) modems. These will include PN sequences with low auto and cross-correlation properties, chirp design, in conjunction with pulse shaping and modulation schemes such as orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDM), direct sequence and multi-carrier code division multiple access (DS- and MC-CDMA). The tutorial will also address underwater channel modelling and simulation methodologies that are useful in evaluating "dry" performance of UA systems. Furthermore, the design of receiver algorithms will be considered that utilise adaptive receive arrays, carrier-phase and symbol timing recovery, Doppler compensation and multi-user detection methodologies. The tutorial is suitable for modem engineers with limited or no experience in this area to assist them in the design of UA based communication systems.

Presenter Bios:
Charalampos Tsimenidis is a Lecturer in Communications in the School of Electrical, Electronic, and Computer Engineering. He received his PhD in 2002 from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. His main research interests are in the area adaptive array receivers for wireless communications including demodulation algorithms and protocol design for underwater acoustic channels. He has published over 40 conference and journal papers. During the last five year he has made contributions in the area of receiver design to several European funded research projects including LOTUS, SWAN, and ACME.

Bayan Sharif is Professor of Digital Communications and Head of the School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering. He received the bachelor and doctorate degrees from Queen's University of Belfast and Ulster University, N. Ireland, in 1984 and 1988, respectively. He then held a Research Fellowship at Queen's University of Belfast before he was appointed as Lecturer at Newcastle University in 1990, and then as Senior Lecturer and Professor in Digital Communications in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Prof. Sharif has research interests in digital communications with a focus on wireless receiver structures and optimisation of wireless networks. He has published over 200 journal and conference papers, and held UK and EU research grants in digital communications, underwater acoustics and signal processing worth over £3M. He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IET.

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