R&D of a low-complexity acoustic communication payload for small-size AUV

Due to its features of low-cost, deployment-convenience and low detection probability, small size AUV is drawing more and more attention from diverse marine fields. While the technique of acoustic communication is capable of enabling wireless link of small size AUV, difficulties caused by adverse underwater acoustic mobile channel such as multipath, Doppler and noise pose significant challenges. Moreover, extremely strict constaints in terms of size, power supply and real-time caculation capability means that R&D of acoustic communication payload need to seek a tradeoff between the algorithm performance and system overhead. To deal with the abovementioned hurdles, a lightweight acoustic communication payload for small-size AUV is designed. Specifically, the proposed payload adopts symbol-wise low-complexity Doppler estimation and compenstaion process, which is incorporated with a compact channel equalizer to achieve reliable mobile communication under Doppler and multipath conditions. The hardware and software design associated with the efficient system implementation of the proposed scheme is given. Finally, lake trial results performed based on small size AUV equiped with the proposed acoustic communication payload is presented to verify its effectiveness.