Underwater acoustic communication using orthogonal signal division multiplexing with windowing

Abstract

Underwater acoustic (UWA) communication is an essential technology that supports underwater surveys by transmitting images and movies wirelessly. However, UWA communication is still challenging due to the large delay and Doppler spreads in UWA channels. Doppler-resilient orthogonal signal division multiplexing (D-OSDM) under water has been found effective in such channels, but Doppler modeling errors prevent further improvement in communication quality. In this paper, we clarify the effect of Doppler modeling errors on the communication quality of D-OSDM and propose the use of a window function in D-OSDM to address the issues that such errors raise. We also evaluate the communication quality of D-OSDM using the window function through simulations and experiments. The experimental results show a 56% increase in the number of error-free data blocks, indicating that windowing can improve communication quality.