Analysis of channel effects on direct-sequence and frequency-hopped spread-spectrum acoustic communication

Multiuser underwater acoustic communication is one of the enabling technologies for the autonomous ocean-sampling network (AOSN). Multiuser communication allows vehicles, moorings, and bottom instruments to interact without human intervention to perform adaptive sampling tasks. In addition, multiuser communication may be used to send data from many autonomous users to one buoy with RIF communications capability, which will then forward the information to shore. The two major signaling techniques for multiuser acoustic communication are phase-shift keying (PSK) direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DSSS) and frequency-shift keying (FSK) frequency-hopped spread-spectrum (FHSS). Selecting between these two techniques requires not only a study of their performance under multiuser conditions, but also an analysis of the impact of the underwater acoustic channel. In the case of DSSS, limitations in temporal coherence of the channel affect the maximum spreading factor, leading to situations that may be better suited to FHSS signals. Conversely, the multipath resolving properties of DSSS minimize the effects of frequency-selective fading that degrade the performance of FSK modulation. Two direct-sequence receivers potentially suitable for the underwater channel are presented. The first utilizes standard despreading followed by decision-directed gain and phase tracking. The second uses chip-rate adaptive filtering and phase tracking prior to despreading. Results from shallow water testing in two different scenarios are presented to illustrate the techniques and their performance.