Path Gain Characterization of Shallow Water Acoustic Channel: A Geometry based Approach

Abstract

Underwater acoustic channel is complex and modeling it is a challenging task. In this paper we present a geometry based approach to characterize the path gains encountered in a shallow underwater acoustic communications channel. The system geometry is used to derive the distribution of Angle of Arrivals (of the different channel paths) at the receiver. This distribution is then exploited to derive the distribution of the path gains. The proposed model is used to obtain channel characterization for different parameter values, thereby illustrating how the model can be used to simulate the channel gains for different demographies. This is especially important because the shallow water acoustic channel is very site specefic.