An Underwater Acoustic Channel Modeling for Internet of Things Networks.

Interest in wideband and medium distance underwater acoustic communication systems is increasing due to the practical application of underwater Internet of Things (IoT) networks. In this paper, we propose a simplified empirical channel model for the medium distance underwater acoustic channels based on real measurement results. The simple and tractable channel model is critical for the development of advanced underwater communications technology. The underwater channel measurements were performed at 20 m sea water depth, the transmitters (TXs) were located at 5 m and 15 m from the bottom, the receivers (RXs) were located at 4 m, 8 m, 12 m, and 16 m from the bottom, and the TX–RX distances were 21 m, 71 m, 127 m, and 273 m. We derived the path loss from the measured dataset, and modified the log-distance model to create a model suitable for an underwater IoT channel. Numerical results show that the proposed model is accurate and reliable enough to use in the development of advanced underwater communication technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]