Underwater Acoustic Communications Performance Modeling in Support of Ad Hoc Network Design

This paper discusses a methodology for predicting underwater acoustic communications performance using high fidelity acoustic time series simulation and acoustic modem processing emulation. Multiple source/receiver combinations can be simultaneously simulated, so that aspects of a complete underwater network can be studied. Here, the fundamental modeling and emulation capability will be described, with examples of the propagation modeling, time series simulation, and modem processing over multiple realizations of example communications channels. The results show the dependence of source and receiver location in the water column with respect to the sound speed profile on communications performance. The utility of such simulations for ad hoc network design in the presence of moving communications nodes will be discussed.