Improvement of Power Efficiency for Underwater Acoustic Communication Using Orthogonal Signal Division Multiplexing over Multiple Transducers

Abstract

In underwater acoustic (UWA) communication, power efficiency is one of the important characteristics. This paper is about multistream transmission using orthogonal signal division multiplexing (OSDM) as a technique to increase power efficiency. In this work, the performance of multistream transmission using OSDM is evaluated both experimentally in a test tank and by numerical simulation. Through this study, it is confirmed that the multistream transmission scheme is effective in enhancing the power efficiency compared with the single-stream transmission using higher order modulation. Moreover, the performance of multistream transmission using OSDM is compared with the existing scheme, multistream transmission using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The obtained results suggest that multistream transmission using OSDM is attractive because it can achieve the same bit-error rate (BER) and the same data rate with less power of the signal, compared with the reference. Although the calculation cost of OSDM in the receiver remains as an issue, multistream transmission using OSDM may contribute to high-speed UWA communication because of its excellent power efficiency.