A Simulation Study of Underwater Acoustic Communications in the North Field of Qatar

Abstract

Abstract Qatar is a leading natural gas producer and exporter in the world. Most of the natural gas (and oil) of Qatar is extracted from offshore wells, and then it is transferred to onshore for processing. In addition, Qatar is connected to UAE by one of the world's longest underwater pipelines (managed by Dolphin Energy), to transfer processed gas from the offshore north field to the UAE. Security of such critical offshore infrastucture against threats along with the environmental and preventive maintenance monitoring (e.g., pollution, leakage) are of utmost importance. A wireless underwater sensor network can be deployed for the security and safety of underwater pipelines. However, underwater acoustic communication brings its own challenges such as limited transmission range, low data rates and link unreliability. In this paper, we propose “cooperative communication” as an enabling technology to meet the challenging demands in underwater acoustic communication (UWAC). Specifically, we consider a multi-carrier and multi-relay UWAC system and investigate relay (partner) selection rules in a cooperation scenario. For relay selection, we consider different selection criteria, which rely either on the maximization of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or the minimization of probability of error (PoE). These are used in conjunction with so-called per-subcarrier, allsubcarriers, or subcarrier grouping approaches in which one or more relays are selected. In our simulation study, we choose an offshore area in the North Eastern side of Qatar (which coincides with the North Field) and conduct an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study for the chosen location to demonstrate the performance of the proposed UWAC system. Our channel model builds on an aggregation of both large-scale path loss and small-scale fading. For acoustic path loss modeling, we use the ray-tracing algorithm Bellhop software to precisely reflect the characteristics of the simulation location such as the sound speed profile, sound frequency, bathymetry, type of bottom sediments, depths of nodes, etc (See Fig.1 ). Our simulation results for the error rate performance have demonstrated significant performance improvements over direct transmission schemes and highlighted the enhanced link reliability made possible by cooperative communications (See Fig.2 ).