Dynamic Modulation and Bandwidth Optimization for UUV Underwater Acoustic Communication System

The underwater acoustic (UWA) communication of underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV) is relating to the communication among UUVs or between UUV and hoster. Then the UWA communication becomes more difficult due to its complex acoustic environment, variety of ranges and the limitation of the space and energy of UUVs. In this paper a dynamic modulation and bandwidth optimization (DMBO) UWA communication technique is presented, which is suitable for the UWA communication in far, medium and near ranges. According to the different acoustic channels the modulation and bandwidth can be optimized to overcome the disadvantage of single scheme UWA communication which performance is restricted by the longest communication range and the worst UWA channel to use lower data rates. DMBO can achieve higher data rates in the different communication ranges and UWA channels. Experiments in a lake were conducted and its performance is investigated. Experimental results show that the data rate reach 9090 bps and 640 bps in the ranges of 5 km and 25 km respectively with the bit error rate below 10^-4