Weighted Multiple-sensor Combining Algorithm for Long-range Underwater Acoustic Communications and Experimental Results

Abstract

In very long-range underwater acoustic communications, enhancing communication performance often involves augmenting the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) through the integration of multiple receiver sensors. However, in cases where sensors are linearly combined, those with inferior performance can significantly impact overall communication efficacy. Consequently, when employing linear combinations, it becomes essential to assign lower weighting factors to sensors exhibiting higher error rates, thereby enhancing overall system performance. This paper introduces a novel approach: a weighted multiple-sensor combination algorithm that leverages the preamble error rate of individual sensors. Through the utilization of turbo coding with a rate of 1/3 and 4/8-ary frequency-shift keying method, extensive experiments spanning very long distances of over 160 km in the East Sea were conducted. The results of these experiments demonstrate that the proposed weighted multiple-sensor combination algorithm markedly improves BER performance compared to conventional linear combination algorithms.