Turbo equalization based on factor graphs for underwater acoustic communication systems

Abstract

Underwater acoustic channels usually suffer from the extended multipath propagation which causes inter symbol interference (ISI). At the receiving end, serious ISI would result in the decrease of the reliability of underwater acoustic communication systems. In this paper, Turbo equalization is applied to increase the reliability of communication systems. The realization of the channel equalizer in Turbo equalization is the linear minimum mean-square error (MMSE) estimate. To avoid performance loss, Turbo equalization and factor graph are combined together which provides a full-window method. Moreover, a modified extrinsic information feedback mechanism of turbo equalization is proposed. The reliability of communication systems is further enhanced by using this mechanism. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm performs well with low complexity. This demonstrates the potential of the suggested algorithm in practice.