Joint Multi-Path Equalization With Enhanced Diversity Gain Based on Path-by-Path Delay-Scale Compensation

Abstract

This letter investigates the equalization challenge in point-to-point single-carrier underwater acoustic communication with heterogeneous time-varying multipath channels. Conventional methods using maximum multipath component compensation or path-by-path compensation with decision feedback equalizers exhibit inherent limitations: the former induces interference causing imperfect multipath alignment, while the latter underutilizes multipath diversity gains. To overcome these, we propose a novel joint multi-path equalization and combining scheme based on path-by-path delay-scale compensation. The proposed scheme achieves dynamic optimization of path diversity gain by implementing multi-delay multi-scale compensation and jointly optimizing the equalization and combining. Simulations demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme over existing methods.