An analysis model of DoA in maritime environment for ship-to-ship/shore wireless communications

Wireless mesh ad hoc network is envisaged by us recently for maritime communications because of the lack of high-speed and low-cost communication systems in sea. A maritime simulator is developed for the purpose to simulate the sea environment and evaluate designs and protocols used in maritime mesh networks. In maritime simulator, modeling direction of arrival (DoA) of radio signal is critical since it determines antenna gain and received radio signal power at a receiver. In this paper, we propose an analysis model of DoA in maritime environment based on modeling sea wave movement as Trochoid wave and analyzing orientations of ships in various sea states. Simulations have been carried out and the results match very well with measured. The model can be used in simulation of wireless ship-to-ship/shore communications, and in finding maximum loss of antenna gain due to sea wave movement, which needs being considered in link budget when do network planning.