Parallel Resampling of OFDM Signals for Fluctuating Doppler Shifts in Underwater Acoustic Communication

Abstract

Reliable underwater acoustic communication is demanded for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs). Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is robust with multipath interference; however, it is sensitive to Doppler. Doppler compensation is given by two-step processing of resampling and residual carrier frequency offset (CFO) compensation. This paper describes the improvement of a resampling technique. The conventional method assumes a constant Doppler shift during a communication frame. It cannot cope with Doppler fluctuation, where relative speeds between transmitter and receiver units are fluctuating. We propose a parallel resampling technique that a resampling range is extended by measured Doppler standard deviation. The effectiveness of parallel resampling has been confirmed in the communication experiment. The proposed method shows better performance in bit error rates (BERs) and frame error rates (FERs) compared with the conventional method.