On the Performance of a New Wireless Communication Compact Multichannel Underwater Receiver Using a Sphere Vector Sensor

In this paper, experimental results are presented on the performance of a new underwater communication compact multichannel receiver that utilizes a sphere vector sensor. It measures the x, y and z underwater particle velocity field components, and utilizes them for symbol recovery. Comparison of the sphere vector sensor experimental data with those collected using a scalar sensor receiver suggests that the multichannel nature of the sphere vector sensor receiver can provide a performance improvement for underwater communication. As another result, statistical analysis of the measured underwater particle velocity channels suggests the Student-t distribution as a suitable distribution to characterize such channels. This is useful in studies where a statistical model for the particle velocity channels is needed.