Comparison of Acoustic Channel Characteristics in Shallow and Deep-Sea Water

Abstract

The vital technology in the marine industry, underwater acoustic communication (UWAC), which has a crucial subsidiary role in undersea surveillance and military maneuvers. Now a days, the utmost prevalent and enduring system for undersea exploration is UWAC due to diminutive attenuation (signal reduction) of sound. However, the sound speed has abnormal variations with respect to the ocean columns. Usually, ocean water columns have been classified into two types based on the depth; such as shallow (0–100 m) and Deep-sea water (100-few thousands of kilometers). The physical (temperature, salinity) and chemical characteristics (pH, dissolved oxygen, nutrient salts) of these water divisions has abnormal variations with respect to the topographical regions and water depth. In addition, numerous factors such as; wave speed; multipath, interference, doppler spread have shown a great influence on sound propagation in underwater. Hence, a proficient channel modelling is required to analyze the effect of aforementioned parameters in order to achieve reliable communication in underwater environment. Therefore, in this work an acoustic channel model has been proposed for analyzing the sound speed variations and transmission losses in shallow and Deep-sea water scenarios. The effect of temperature, salinity on sound speed with respect to water depth has been estimated. Finally, the simulations outcomes of both shallow and Deep-sea water have been compared in terms of attenuation, sound speed, and transmission losses.