Study of Propagation Channel Characteristics for Underwater Acoustic Communication Environments

Abstract

For the study of propagation characteristics in underwater acoustic channels, a geometry-based model is introduced to represent the multipath scattering environments between a transmitter (Tx) and a mobile receiver (MR). To consider the impact of the scattering environments on the propagation characteristics with low complexity, we adopt a rectangle to describe the communication environments of the vertical cross section of the ocean, where the scatterers are assumed to be randomly distributed on the surface and bottom of the sea. In the model, we first derive the closed-form expressions for the probability density functions (PDFs) of the angle of departure (AoD) and angle of arrival (AoA) statistics. Then, we investigate the spatial and frequency correlation functions of two different propagation paths. The numerical simulation results fit the conventional results very well, which demonstrate that the proposed model has the ability to describe the underwater acoustic communication environments.