Time reversal acoustic communication receivers: DSP implementation and fast channel estimation

A communication system is implemented on digital signal processors (DSPs) for the underwater acoustic environment. The implemented receiver uses time reversal multi-channel combining followed by a single-channel decision feedback equalizer. Periodic channel estimation is employed to track the channel fluctuations. These techniques are used to mitigate time-varying inter-symbol interference, which is the main challenge in the underwater acoustic channel at operating frequencies greater than 10 kHz. Various optimization tasks are performed to reduce the receiver computational complexity. A fast implementation of the matching pursuit algorithm is tested on the DSP platform. Its performance, in terms of accuracy and run-time, is compared with that of the basic matching pursuit algorithm. Experimental results of the transmission and demodulation of binary phase-shift keying signals at three different symbol rates were obtained in the local Delaware Bay. The low bit error rates demonstrate the effectiveness of our implementation.