Experimental Demonstration of Long-Range Underwater Acoustic Communication Using a Vertical Sensor Array

Anbang Zhao; Caigao Zeng; Juan Hui; Lin Ma; Xuejie Bi

doi:10.3390/s17071516

Experimental Demonstration of Long-Range Underwater Acoustic Communication Using a Vertical Sensor Array

Sensors (Basel). 2017 Jun 27;17(7):1516. doi: 10.3390/s17071516.

Authors

Anbang Zhao^{1

2

3}, Caigao Zeng^{4

5}, Juan Hui^{6

7}, Lin Ma^{8

9}, Xuejie Bi^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Acoustic Science and Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. zhaoanbang@hrbeu.edu.cn.
² College of Underwater Acoustic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. zhaoanbang@hrbeu.edu.cn.
³ National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Underwater Acoustic Antagonizing, China State Shipbuilding Corporation Systems Engineering Research Institute, Beijing 100036, China. zhaoanbang@hrbeu.edu.cn.
⁴ Acoustic Science and Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. cgzeng@hrbeu.edu.cn.
⁵ College of Underwater Acoustic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. cgzeng@hrbeu.edu.cn.
⁶ Acoustic Science and Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. huijuan@hrbeu.edu.cn.
⁷ College of Underwater Acoustic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. huijuan@hrbeu.edu.cn.
⁸ Acoustic Science and Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. malin@hrbeu.edu.cn.
⁹ College of Underwater Acoustic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. malin@hrbeu.edu.cn.
¹⁰ Acoustic Science and Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. bixuejie@hrbeu.edu.cn.
¹¹ College of Underwater Acoustic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China. bixuejie@hrbeu.edu.cn.

Abstract

This paper proposes a composite channel virtual time reversal mirror (CCVTRM) for vertical sensor array (VSA) processing and applies it to long-range underwater acoustic (UWA) communication in shallow water. Because of weak signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), it is unable to accurately estimate the channel impulse response of each sensor of the VSA, thus the traditional passive time reversal mirror (PTRM) cannot perform well in long-range UWA communication in shallow water. However, CCVTRM only needs to estimate the composite channel of the VSA to accomplish time reversal mirror (TRM), which can effectively mitigate the inter-symbol interference (ISI) and reduce the bit error rate (BER). In addition, the calculation of CCVTRM is simpler than traditional PTRM. An UWA communication experiment using a VSA of 12 sensors was conducted in the South China Sea. The experiment achieves a very low BER communication at communication rate of 66.7 bit/s over an 80 km range. The results of the sea trial demonstrate that CCVTRM is feasible and can be applied to long-range UWA communication in shallow water.

Keywords: composite channel; long-range UWA communication; shallow water; vertical sensor array; virtual time reversal mirror.