Performance Analysis of Acoustic RIS-Assisted Wireless Underwater Communications

One of the most significant technical research challenges of space-air-ground-sea integrated networks is to realize satisfactory wireless data transmission in underwater environments. However, although numerous types of communications, e.g., radio frequency, optical and acoustic, have been investigated, the performance of wireless underwater communications still cannot satisfy the ever-increasing high data rate and long communication distance requirements. This paper demonstrates an early attempt regarding performance analysis of acoustic intelligent reflecting surface (RIS)-assisted wireless underwater communication. The minimization of transmission power is formulated subject to a list of constraints. The analytic scheme is proposed, where two key system parameters, e.g., reflection angle and acoustic signal frequency, are investigated. Numerical results verify that acoustic RIS-assisted wireless underwater communication can significantly enhance signal transmission quality and decrease interference. The results obtained in this paper can be applied to future autonomous underwater vehicles and robot system designs.