Design of an Acoustic Communication System Based on FHMA for Multiple Underwater Vehicles

This paper designs an underwater acoustic communication system based on tamed spread spectrum and Frequency Hopping Multiple Access (FHMA) for multiple underwater vehicles. In this system, multiple underwater vehicles can communicate with the console on the water surface simultaneously successfully. The communication system is composed of tamed spread spectrum modulation and demodulation, frequency hopping modulation and demodulation with synchronization function, 4FSK modulation and demodulation and Rake Receiver. In order to make the system more feasible, underwater channel and the effect of user number on Bit Error Ratio (BER) are also taken into account. The simulation results indicate that it is feasible to use this system to accomplish underwater communication reliably for multiple users due to the low BER.