Multichannel processing of broad-band multiuser communication signals in shallow water acoustic channels

High-throughout multiple-access communication networks are being considered for use in underwater acoustic channels. Bandwidth limitations of underwater acoustic channels require receivers to process broad-band communications signals in the presence of several active users. To deal with the resulting multiple-access interference in addition to high intersymbol interference, spatial variability of ocean multipath is exploited in a multichannel multiuser receiver. Two configurations of such a receiver, a centralized and a decentralized one, are presented in fully adaptive modes of operations. While greatly reducing intersymbol and multiple-access interference, spatial diversity implies high increase in adaptive multiuser receiver complexity. To reduce the complexity of the optimal multichannel combiner, spatial structure of multipath is exploited. The complexity of resulting adaptive decentralized multichannel multiuser receiver is reduced at almost no cost in performance. Comparison of proposed multichannel receivers in an experimental shallow water channel demonstrates superior performance of spatial signal combining. The use of multiple input channels is shown to provide high level of tolerance for the near-far effect in both centralized and decentralized receivers. Decentralized receiver with reduced-complexity combining is found to satisfy the performance/complexity trade-off required for practical receiver realization in shallow water networks.