On underwater acoustic particle velocity channels: Some experimental results

Abstract

Studies have shown that acoustic particle velocity channels, in addition to the acoustic pressure channel, can be beneficial for underwater acoustic communication [A. Abdi and H. Guo, “A new compact multichannel receiver for underwater wireless communication networks,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun. 8, 3326–3329 (2009); A. Abdi, et al., “An overview of underwater acoustic communication via particle velocity channels: Channel modeling and transceiver design,” Proc. Meetings Acoust. 9, 070002 (2010)]. In this paper, we use experimentally measured acoustic particle velocity and acoustic pressure channels, using transmitted linearly frequency modulated (LFM) signals, to investigate and compare various signal and noise characteristics of these channels. Examples include signal and noise powers and ratios, delay spreads of the channels, temporal and spatial auto and cross covariance functions for the particle velocity and acoustic pressure noise components, and frequency responses of the acoustic particle velocity and acoustic pressure channels. Understanding these signal and noise characteristics allows a system designer to design and implement reliable and efficient underwater acoustic communication systems that employ multiple acoustic particle velocity channels, together with the acoustic pressure channel. [The work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Grant IIP-1500123.]