Scalable OFDM design for underwater acoustic communications

Abstract

Multicarrier modulation in the form of OFDM has been actively pursued for underwater acoustic communication recently. In this paper, we present a desirable property of OFDM that one signal design can be easily scaled to t into different transmission bandwidths with negligible changes on the receiver. We have tested the proposed design with data collected from experiments at AUV Fest, Panama City, FL, June 2007, and at the Buzzards Bay, MA, Aug. 2007. With QPSK modulation, we have used different bandwidths from 3 kHz to 50 kHz, leading to data rates from 1.5 kbps to 25 kbps after rate 1/2 coding. With 16-QAM modulation, we have used different bandwidths from 12 kHz to 50 kHz, leading to data rates from 12 kbps to 50 kbps. Excellent BER performance has been achieved, which con rms the exibility of OFDM under different system setups.

A Review on Electromagnetic, Acoustic, and New Emerging Technologies for Submarine Communication

“…Compared with RF waves, underwater acoustic communication (UWAC) has a better performance in the water. It has a data rate of 50 kbps for 0.5km [21] and 0.6-3.0kbps for 28-120km [22]. Its propagation range is almost the longest of all of the existing methods, but the communication latency is relatively higher than electromagnetic communication because sound travels far slower in the water than electromagnetic waves.…”