Influence of different phenomena on the errors in distance measurement using underwater acoustics coded signals

The underwater channel is a highly variable medium due to the influence of several effects on the acoustic signal, and the physical variability of the environment. This behavior makes the underwater channel a very difficult one to model, and also a complex environment to work with. In acoustic-based positioning or sonar systems, where it is important to know accurately the time-of-flights of the signals, pseudorandom codes provide immunity to some of these effects. In this work, a statistical study of the influence in range detection of common effects in underwater acoustics, such as noise and wind speed, is presented. Through this study, the performance of a relative positioning system is also studied for different scenarios.