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UASP Committee ADCOM Report to
IEEE Signal Processing Society
Board of Governors
Prepared by: Rick Vaccaro
Date: September, 1997.

  • There was a meeting of UASP committee members at ICASSP '97 in Munich. A major topic of discussion was the SP Magazine article on the past, present, and future of underwater acoustics signal processing. The lead authors are Don Tufts, Jack Ianniello, and Jose' Moura; the entire committee will participate in the review process. We also discussed our 1997 Workshop which will be held on October 8-10.

  • The idea of restructuring three TCs: DSP, SSAP, and UASP, into three new committees, one of which deals with communications, was the subject of e-mail discussions after the ICASSP meeting. The following statement was endorsed by the UASP committee:

    The UASP committee endorses the concept of restructuring three existing TCs -- DSP, SSAP, and UASP -- into three new TCs. Our principle concern relates to the division of technical areas into the three new TCs. For example, we feel that "Techniques of Signal Processing" is too broad of a title. The particular focus that is agreed upon for that TC should be reflected in its title.

    The "Communications" and "Arrays" committees both refer to applications areas; both committees make use of signal processing techniques. Thus, the precise role of the "Techniques" committee must be specified. Of course, there is likely to be some overlap in the new committees.

    We think that this restructuring will be of benefit to the SP Society and we look forward to working together with DSP and SSAP to define the scope of the new TCs as soon as possible. Once that is done, we believe that the remaining details can then be addressed.

  • A subcommittee consisting of Rick Vaccaro, Cliff Carter, and Jose' Moura will represent the UASP committee in the process of working out the details of the proposed reorganization.

  • Two new committee members were elected to 3-year terms: Doug Abraham (SACLANT Undersea Research Center) and Yingo Hua (University of Melbourne). Seven committee members completed a 3-year term. Of these, four were elected to an additional 3-year term: John Fay, Neil Gerr, Jose' Moura, and Ed Titlebaum.

    Chairman's Report, September, 1996

  • There was a meeting of UASP members at ICASSP '96 in Atlanta. The main topic of discussion was the Committee Scope Statement. The background for the discussion is as follows: the UASP Committee has interest in radar signal processing applications, as well as in signal processing problems in the context of the underwater acoustic channel. In the past, radar applications represented a small part of the committee's interests, but this interest is increasing as more committee members are working on both radar and sonar problems. The unifying theme of our committee is the attention paid to the physics of propagation.

  • The following Scope Statement was approved by vote of the Committee:

    The Committee is primarily concerned with the application of the principles of detection, estimation, and communication theory to signal processing problems in which the physics of propagation and scattering must be included to a high degree of realism. Typical research areas of interest are sonar (active and passive) and radar signal processing for detection, localization, tracking, and classification; matched-field processing (underwater acoustic and electromagnetic); reverberation suppression for active sonar; space-time adaptive radar processing; signal design for active sonar and radar; telemetry; communication in multipath channels; geophysical and seismic processing; biomedical applications.

  • Plans for the 1997 Underwater Acoustics Signal Processing Workshop were discussed and a flier announcing the workshop was distributed. The workshop will be held October 8 -- 10, 1997.

  • Six new members were nominated for the UASP TC: Ed Baranoski (Lincoln Labs), P.C. Ching (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Geoff Edelson (Sanders), Isabel Lourtie (Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal), Robert McDonough (Johns Hopkins APL), and Jim Preisig (Northeastern University). Their nomination was confirmed by an e-mail vote taken after the ICASSP meeting.

  • Eight committee members finished their 3-year terms. Two of these, Don Gingras and Don Tufts, expressed interest in serving another term. Their renewals were confirmed by an e-mail vote.

  • Cliff Carter, secretary of the committee, conducted an e-mail vote for Committee Chair. Rick Vaccaro was elected to serve a second 2-year term.

    Chairman's Report, May 1996

    The UASP Technical Committee is interested in the following topics:

  • The bi-annual Underwater Acoustics Signal Processing Workshop was held on October 11-13, 1995, at the Alton Jones campus of the University of Rhode Island. The workshop opened with a keynote talk by Roy Streit of NUWC, entitled, ``How I Learned to Love Probability and Stop Worrying About Neural Networks.'' Dr. Streit showed how to design the structure and weights for a neural network classifier using results from probability theory. He gave results of his method on the classification of underwater acoustic transients. The workshop consisted of three half-day lecture sessions. Sixteen papers were presented on topics including matched-field processing, adaptive beamforming, and shallow-water acoustical modeling.

  • The review of ICASSP summaries for ICASSP'96 was conducted from September 11 through October 11, 1995. Papers were mailed to committee members who filled out evaluation sheets and returned them via fax. The final decisions were made by six committee members at a meeting at the Alton Jones campus on October 11 just prior to our workshop.

  • A major topic of e-mail discussion has been a change of scope and name for our Technical Committee. We would like to broaden our scope to include electromagnetic (radar) signal processing as well as underwater acoustic (sonar). One motivation for this is that several of our members who have backgrounds in sonar are now beginning to work on radar problems. The unifying theme of our committee would be the attention paid to the physics of propagation. An example of the connection between acoustic and electromagnetic signal processing is that ONR has recently announced an initiative in electromagnetic matched field processing (EM-MFP). MFP was developed for sonar signal processing, and the new initiative intends to extend MFP to the case of electromagnetic propagation.

  • The new name for our committee is still under discussion. A possible scope statement for our committee is: ``The XXXX Committee is primarily concerned with the application of the principles of statistical detection, estimation, and communication theory to signal processing problems in which the physics of propagation and scattering must be included to a high degree of realism. Typical research areas of interest are sonar (active and passive) and radar signal processing for detection, localization, tracking, and classification; matched-field processing (acoustic and electromagnetic); reverberation suppression for active sonar; space-time adaptive radar processing for clutter suppression; signal design for active sonar and radar; acoustic communication; wireless communication, geophysical and seismic processing.''

    willett@eng2.uconn.edu
    Monday, September 22, 1997.