EAGER: Acoustic Wireless Sensors Communication in Soils

部署传感器来监测已建成的基础设施对于收集有关施工期间基础设施性能及其长期健康状况的信息至关重要。 传感器还可以在极端事件发生期间和之后提供有关基础设施状态的关键数据，并为我们城市的弹性做出贡献。 有线连接目前用于地下收集数据，但有许多限制：（a）拥塞：由于传感器是通过钻孔安装的，因此可以安装在钻孔中的电线的数量有限，因此传感器的数量有限，以及（B）连接：有线连接是安装中的薄弱环节，这些连接退化并暴露于周围环境是很常见的。 一旦暴露，数据就无法再传输。 EAGER奖将探索水下无线声学通信技术在土壤无线通信中的应用。这项工作包括对这种无线技术的实验和现场测试。 新的算法和技术，使无线数据编码，调制，传输和接收将被开发。 由于土壤中的信号衰减大于水中的信号衰减，以及地下土壤的成分不均匀，预计将面临挑战。 然而，初步的概念验证测试已经清楚地证明了这种无线传输的可行性。 这是一个高风险、高回报的项目，汇集了岩土工程和仪器仪表以及海底声学数据传输和信号处理方面的专业知识。 预计潜在的应用将远远超出传感器的数据传输，并可能实现地面以下的移动的数据连接和定位服务。 这项工作有可能彻底改变通过土壤的数字数据传输。这些技术的成功开发可以将无线通信从地上带到土壤内，并大幅降低地下通信成本并提高数据传输可靠性。 它可以消除对在腐蚀性城市环境中容易损坏的长通信线路安装的需要，这些环境由暴露于腐蚀性化学品，杂散电流和地下水，大型建筑机械和故意破坏造成的损坏表示。 除了该项目技术开发的突破性之外，这项工作的成功将在全球范围内产生具有商业潜力的新技术。 在美国，主要的经济利益和创造跨多个学科的高薪技术工作是可能的。 这些发展可以实现无处不在的基础设施传感，特别是在城市中心不可或缺的地下基础设施中。 水下无线声学通信技术已经发展了几十年，并广泛用于近海石油和天然气以及其他海底工业以及海军作业。 伊利诺伊大学在这项技术方面取得了重大进展，最近通过动物组织证明了每秒兆比特的声学通信研究，并通过水证明了每秒数百兆比特的声学通信。

Deployment of sensors for monitoring built infrastructure is essential for collecting information on the infrastructure performance during construction, as well as on its long-term health. Sensors can also provide crucial data on the state of the infrastructure during, and in the aftermath of extreme events, and contributes generally to the resiliency of our cities. Wired connections are currently used below ground to collect data, but have a number of limitations: (a) Congestion: As sensors are installed via drilled boreholes, there is a limit on the number of wires that can be installed in the borehole and therefore a limit to the number of sensors, and (b) Connections: Wired connections are weak points in the installation and it is not unusual for these connections to degrade and become exposed to the surrounding environment. Once exposed, data can no longer be transmitted. This EAGER award will explore the application of underwater wireless acoustic communication technology to wireless communications through soils. The work includes both experimental and field testing of this wireless technology. New algorithms and techniques that enable wireless data encoding, modulation, transmission, and reception will be developed. Challenges are expected due to greater signal attenuation in soils than in water and due to the non-uniform composition of subterranean soils. However, preliminary proof-of-concept testing has clearly demonstrated the feasibility of such wireless transmission. This is a high-risk, high-payoff project that brings together expertise from geotechnical engineering and instrumentation and subsea acoustic data transmission and signal processing. Potential applications are expected to go well-beyond data transmission for sensors and possibly enable mobile data connections and location services below the ground surface. This work has the potential to revolutionize digital data transmission through soils. The successful development of these technologies could bring wireless communications from above ground to within the soil, and result in a dramatic reduction in subterranean communication costs and increases in data transmission reliability. It could eliminate the need for long communication wire installations that are prone to damage in a corrosive urban environment, denoted by exposure to corrosive chemicals, stray currents, and groundwater, damage from large construction machinery and vandalism. In addition to the breakthrough nature of the project's technical developments, the success of this work will spawn new technologies with commercial potential worldwide. Major economic benefits and the creation of high-paying technical jobs across multiple disciplines within the US are possible. These developments could enable pervasive infrastructure sensing, especially in underground infrastructure that are integral to our urban centers. Underwater wireless acoustic communication technologies have been in development for a number of decades and are used extensively in the offshore oil and gas and other subsea industries as well as in naval operations. Significant developments have been made in this technology at the University of Illinois where megabit-per-second acoustic communication research has been recently demonstrated through animal tissue and hundreds-of-megabits-per-second acoustic communication have been demonstrated through water.