Underwater acoustic communication using nonlinear frequency modulation waveform with low side-lobe characteristics

Abstract

In fluctuating underwater acoustic (UWA) communication, reducing the interference caused by multi-path propagation is important to get better performance. For this reason, Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS), which has insensitive Doppler effect and having effective bandwidth, using Linear Frequency Modulation (LFM) waveform was used in UWA communication before. But LFM waveform has high auto-correlation function sidelobes it becomes interference and gets worse performance in reverberation environment. This presentation proposes an UWA communication using Generalized Sinusoidal Frequency Modulation (GSFM) waveform which is generalized form of sinusoidal FM. GSFM waveform usually attains much higher spectral efficiency and lower peak-to-average power ratio than LFM while maintaining same bandwidth and pulse duration. GSFM waveform has various types and we use two GSFM pulses that is a Forward type in time-frequency domain and a time reversing type of Forward type in this presentation. Each type represents binary values '0' and '1', respectively. Each of pulses occupy same band of frequency and each of GSFM pulses have nearly orthogonality. Simulation results in various underwater channel environments with noise will be presented. A Bellhop-based underwater channel model is used for simulation. The proposed method will be analyzed compared to the conventional CSS method with LFM waveform.