Cooperative underwater acoustic communications

This article presents a contemporary overview of underwater acoustic communication (UWAC) and investigates physical layer aspects on cooperative transmission techniques for future UWAC systems. Taking advantage of the broadcast nature of wireless transmission, cooperative communication realizes spatial diversity advantages in a distributed manner. The current literature on cooperative communication focuses on terrestrial wireless systems at radio frequencies with sporadic results on cooperative UWAC. In this article, we summarize initial results on cooperative UWAC and investigate the performance of a multicarrier cooperative UWAC considering the inherent unique characteristics of the underwater channel. Our simulation results demonstrate the superiority of cooperative UWAC systems over their point-to-point counterparts. © 1979-2012 IEEE

Multi-resampling Doppler compensation in cooperative underwater OFDM systems

We consider a multi-carrier cooperative underwater acoustic communication (UWAC) system and investigate the Doppler scaling problem arising due to the motion of different nodes. Specifically, we assume an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system with amplify and forward (AF) relaying. Our channel model is built on large-scale path loss along with the short-term frequency-selective fading. For Doppler scaling compensation, we use multi-resampling (MR) receiver designs both at the relay and destination nodes. We present an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study to evaluate the error rate performance of the proposed UWAC system. In simulations, we use the publicly available VirTEX software in conjunction with the ray-tracing based BELLHOP software to precisely reflect the characteristics of an underwater geographical location and the movement of the nodes. © 2013 IEEE

Physical layer network coding based communication systems in frequency selective channels

PhD ThesisThe demand for wireless communications is growing every day which requiresmore speed and bandwidth. In two way relay networks (TWRN), physical layer network coding (PLNC) was proposed to double the bandwidth. A TWRN is a system where two end users exchange data through a middle node called the relay. The two signals are allowed to be physically added before being broadcasted back to the end users. This system can work smoothly in flat fading channels, but can not be applied straightforward in frequency selective channels. In a multipath multi-tap FIR channel, the inter-symbol interference (ISI) spreads through several symbols. In this case, the symbols at the relay are not just an addition of the sent symbols but also some of the previous symbols from both sides. This not only causes a traditional PLNC to fail but also a simple one equalizer system will not solve the problem. Three main methods have been proposed by other researchers. The OFDM based PLNC is the simplest in terms of implementation and complexity but suffers from the disadvantages of the OFDMlike cyclic prefix overhead and frequency offset. The main disadvantage, however is the relatively low BER performance because it is restricted to linear equalizers in the PLNC system. Another approach is pre-filtering or pre-equalization. This method also has some disadvantages like complexity, sensitivity to channel variation and the need of a feedback channel for both end nodes. Finally, the maximum likelihood sequence detector was also proposed but is restricted to BPSK modulation and exponentially rising complexity are major drawbacks. The philosophy in this work is to avoid these disadvantages by using a time domain based system. The DFE is the equalizer of choice here because it provides a non-trivial BER performance improvement with very little increase in complexity. In this thesis, the problem of frequency selective channels in PLNC systems can be solved by properly adjusting the design of the system including the DFE. The other option is to redesign the equalizer to meet that goal. An AF DFE system is proposed in this work that provides very low complexity especially at the relay with little sensitivity to channel changes. A multi-antenna DNF DFE system is also proposed here with an improved performance. Finally, a new equalizer is designed for very low complexity and cost DNF approach with little sacrifice of BER performance. Matlab was used for the simulations with Monte Carlo method to verify the findings of this work through finding the BER performance of each system. This thesis opens the door for future improvement on the PLNC system. More research needs to be done like testing the proposed systems in real practical implementation and also the effect of adding channel coding to these systems.Iraqi Government, Ministry of Higher Educatio

Multi-resampling Doppler compensation in cooperative underwater OFDM systems

We consider a multi-carrier cooperative underwater acoustic communication (UWAC) system and investigate the Doppler scaling problem arising due to the motion of different nodes. Specifically, we assume an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system with amplify and forward (AF) relaying. Our channel model is built on large-scale path loss along with the short-term frequency-selective fading. For Doppler scaling compensation, we use multi-resampling (MR) receiver designs both at the relay and destination nodes. We present an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study to evaluate the error rate performance of the proposed UWAC system. In simulations, we use the publicly available VirTEX software in conjunction with the ray-tracing based BELLHOP software to precisely reflect the characteristics of an underwater geographical location and the movement of the nodes. © 2013 IEEE