Time reversal enabled elastic wave data communications using sensor arrays

Abstract

The Data communication on pipe-like structures presents a unique opportunity for gas pipeline industry or oil drilling and exploration industry to meet the need for information transfer or data telemetry over a long distance. Typically, the operating environment under which the data telemetry is required for gas pipeline or oil drilling is not suitable for traditional communication modalities such as wireless radio communication, optical cable communication, or acoustic sound communication. Elastic waves are waves that can propagate over a long distance on solid medium such as metal pipes or strings. We have demonstrated experimentally the use of elastic wave for data communication over metal pipes in a single-input single-output configuration, which yields a data rate of 20 kb/s by time reversal pulse position modulation (TR-PPM). The result is obtained by exploring the reciprocity of elastic wave channel using time reversal without relying on additional processing techniques such as channel equalization or error control coding. In this paper, we report our experimental and theoretical investigation of TR-PPM scheme using sensor arrays to further improve the data communication throughput.