Underwater acoustic communication based on virtual time reversal and sweep-spread carrier

Abstract

Underwater acoustic (UWA) channel was one of the most complex wireless communication channel because of extensive multipath problem. Multipath problem will lead to severe inter-symbol interference (ISI) and frequency selective fading. To build a reliable high rate UWA communication system in multipath environment, Sweep-Spread Carrier (SSC) system based on Virtual Time Reversal Mirror (VTRM) was introduced. The system requires phase modulation for more than once in every period, so the communication rate could be enhanced. To ensure the reliability of the high rate system, Virtual Time Reversal Mirror combining with Orthogonal Matching Pursuit Channel Estimation was introduced to solve the multipath problem. The ISI in the underwater channel is suppressed because of the temporal compression and spatial focusing, resulting in the channel power focusing. The simulation experiment adopted Bellhop simulation model to verify algorithm performance, then conducting a poor experiment as a further verification. The performance of the system introduced was proved to be significantly enhanced.