Stochastic modeling of internal wave induced acoustic signal fluctuation and performance evaluation of shallow UWANs

Oceanic shallow-water environment draws attention of many researchers due to their dynamic nature with respect to time and space. Underwater acoustic channel is involved with multiple inhomogeneities in different respects to the propagation of acoustic signal. Developing “smart” algorithms capable of enabling acoustic communication in such environments is inherently challenging. For long-range communication, multipath fading is well-known to be a major factor for network performance degradation. Additionally, in case of short-range communication, signal degradation through the propagating medium can occur due to signal interaction with different types of turbulent phenomena. In this study, the turbulent phenomenon we have focused on is internal wave. Variation of internal waves shows a non-uniform distribution of refractive index of ocean water, and as a consequence, there is time varying bending of signal, which results in fluctuation of signal strength towards the receiver end. By introducing few metrics, we have analyzed the performance of Underwater Wireless Acoustic Networks (UWANs) in the presence of realistically occurring internal waves.