Iterative estimation of doubly selective underwater acoustic
channel using basis expansion models
q
Hua Yu
a,
⇑
, Aijun Song
b
, Mohsen Badiey
b
, Fangjiong Chen
a
, Fei Ji
a
a
National Engineering Technology Research Center for Mobile Ultrasonic Detection, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
b
College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA
article info
Article history:
Received 1 March 2014
Received in revised form 24 July 2014
Accepted 28 January 2015
Available online 18 February 2015
Keywords:
Channel estimation
Doubly selective underwater acoustic
channels
Clustered sparsity
OFDM
Basis expansion model (BEM)
Discrete prolate spheroidal sequences
(DPSS)
abstract
An iterative channel estimation scheme is proposed for orthogonal frequency division mul-
tiplexing (OFDM) systems over doubly selective underwater acoustic channels. The chan-
nel estimator is developed based on the basis expansion model (BEM) with two different
types of basis functions, complex exponential (CE) basis and discrete prolate spheroidal
sequences (DPSS). Considering the different Doppler characteristics for each cluster, we
use cluster-specific parameters in the BEM for the most significant taps, such that the num-
ber of unknowns during channel estimation can be considerably reduced. The frequency
domain received samples are expressed in terms of the model coefficients of the most sig-
nificant taps. The channel estimator operates in an iterative, decision-directed fashion. At
the first iteration, it utilizes only pilot symbols. After the first iteration, the estimator also
uses the symbol decisions produced by a linear minimum mean squared error (LMMSE)
block equalizer, in addition to the pilot symbols. We verify the bit-error-rate (BER) perfor-
mance of the OFDM system over a simulated underwater acoustic channel based on
Monterey-Miami Parabolic Equation modeling. It is shown that the LMMSE equalizer with
the BEM-based channel estimators and the one-tap equalizer with perfect channel state
information have similar BER performances. Both the proposed BEM-based channel esti-
mation schemes perform much better than the basic matching pursuit method, a classic
sparsity-aware channel estimation technique.
Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The underwater acoustic channel is a complex, dynamic
communication medium. Due to multiple refections and
scattering from the ocean boundaries, the channel often
shows extensive multipath with an excessive delay spread.
Because of the ocean dynamics and possibly platform
motion, the channel is also time-varying, showing sig-
nificant Doppler spread. The acoustic channel exhibits dis-
persion both in delay and Doppler dimensions, posing
great difficulties in channel estimation and coherent detec-
tion [1,2]. In this paper, we apply the basis expansion mod-
el (BEM) to characterize the time variation of acoustic
channels and to assist the channel estimation in orthogo-
nal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems.
The estimation of doubly selective underwater channels
is considered as a challenging task [3]. Various channel
estimation methods, developed based on the assumption
of the rich multipath channel model, have been summa-
rized in the literature [4]. However, the underwater
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adhoc.2015.01.016
1570-8705/Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
q
Parts of the results in this paper were presented at the International
Conference on Underwater Networks and Systems (WUWNet),
Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2013.
⇑
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: yuhua@scut.edu.cn (H. Yu), ajsong@udel.edu
(A. Song), badiey@udel.edu (M. Badiey), eefjchen@scut.edu.cn (F. Chen),
eefeiji@scut.edu.cn (F. Ji).
Ad Hoc Networks 34 (2015) 52–61
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Ad Hoc Networks
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