Analytical Technique Leveraging Processing Gain for Evaluating the Anti-Jamming Potential of Underwater Acoustic Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Communication Systems

Abstract

This study proposes an analytical technique underpinned by processing gain to evaluate the anti-jamming potential of an underwater acoustic direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DSSS) communication system that employs a short-period pseudo-noise (PN) sequence. The processing gain comes from the symmetry of the coding, which provides a mechanism for separating desired signals from unwanted ones, and the apparent randomness of the coding, which suppresses interference and noise in the system. The robustness of such a system against wideband interference, partial-band jamming, and single-frequency interference is emulated. Outcomes suggest that, in comparison to a standard binary phase shift keying (BPSK) system, the DSSS system’s ability to resist wideband interference is limited, with only a marginal increase in immunity performance of approximately 0.5 dB. Contrarily, it suppresses partial-band jamming effectively, with the suppression level dependent on the interference bandwidth and its relative position concerning the signal carrier frequency. The influence of single-frequency interference on system performance depends similarly on its relative location relative to the signal carrier frequency. In all situations where the interference frequency offset is an integer multiple of the bit bandwidth, the system exhibits the worst performance when the frequency offset equals the bit bandwidth. Upon comparing resistance levels to identical power interferences targeted at the signal carrier frequency, our system demonstrates optimal resilience to single-frequency interference. In concordance with the empirical findings, the simulated results substantiate both the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed analytical method based on processing gain. Subsequently, this study contributes a novel perspective for evaluating the anti-jamming potential of DSSS systems.