title: Feasibility of global-scale synthetic aperture communications.
abstract: A recent paper [Higley et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 118, 2365-2372 (2005)] investigated synthetic aperture communications in shallow water exploiting the relative motion between a source and a receiver. This letter presents a feasibility study of synthetic aperture communications at global distances using the 57 Hz acoustic data from the Heard Island Feasibility Test conducted in January 1991 [Baggeroer and Munk, Phys. Today 45, 22-30 (1992)]. Specifically, a reception at Ascension Island, about 9200 km from the source ship moving at about 3 kt near Heard Island, is analyzed by treating the 255-digit m-sequence tomography signal as a binary-phase shift-keying communication signal with an information rate of 11.4 bitss. The performance using a single receiver combining three consecutive receptions spaced 5.2 min ( approximately 470 m) apart indicates that synthetic aperture acoustic communications is feasible at global distances.
authors.affiliation: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0238, USA. hcsong@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: H C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dzieciuch
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D055590:Electromagnetic Phenomena; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D012117:Resins, Synthetic
chemical_list: D012117:Resins, Synthetic