Joint packet detection and decoding for maritime data exchange systems

A random access technique based on spatially coupling information transmission modulation is proposed. We consider an application of the method to the maritime VHF data exchange system (VDES) in which a large pool of vessels attempt uplink ship-to-satellite communication in an uncoordinated fashion using short data packets. The proposed receiver performs joint packet detection and data decoding of the stream of interfering (coupled) incoming packets. An efficient receiver architecture is designed using a low-complexity approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm. It is demonstrated that the proposed random access technique can successfully accommodate traffic loads that are considerably higher than loads achievable with competing random access mechanisms.