Capacity and statistics of measured underwater acoustic particle velocity channels

Acoustic particle velocity channels can be used for communication in underwater systems [A. Abdi and H. Guo, IEEE Trans. Wireless Communi. 8, 3326-3329, (2009)]. In this paper, the information (Shannon) capacity of underwater acoustic particle velocity channels is studied using measured data. More specifically, the maximum achievable data rates of a compact vector sensor communication receiver and another communication receiver with spatially separated scalar sensors are compared. Some statistics of particle velocity channels such as amplitude distribution and power delay profile are investigated using measured data and proper models are suggested as well. The results are useful for design and simulation of vector sensor underwater communication systems in particle velocity channels.