Design of a wide-angle compound eye acoustic lens system suitable for multi-user underwater acoustic communication

Abstract

Abstract Mobile underwater acoustic (UWA) communication is expected to enable advanced, efficient, and reliable underwater exploration. However, crosstalk among terminals occurs when multiple vehicles emit signals at the same time. In this paper, we propose a UWA lens that has the potential to achieve space-division multiple access by avoiding crosstalk between signals that come from a different angle. Specifically, we used wave theory to design a wide-angle compound eye lens and a hydrophone array geometrically. The two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method was used to calculate wave propagation. Multi-user communication using a single-carrier scheme (two sources emit the signal simultaneously) was simulated with the designed lens system. The communication method with the lens system showed superior performance to that without the lens system. Additionally, the performance was improved by inserting partitions between lens segments.