Underwater acoustic communication faces severe Doppler shifts when unmanned platforms such as AUVs move at high speed, challenging traditional modulation and channel estimation techniques. A study from Shandong University of Science and Technology investigates orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation as a solution, comparing it with conventional OFDM in simulated high-mobility underwater channels. The results show that OTFS significantly lowers bit error rates (BER) across various relative speeds and signal-to-noise ratios, confirming its feasibility for high-speed AUV communication systems.
Key takeaways
- OTFS modulation, operating in the delay-Doppler domain, exploits channel sparsity and offers superior resilience to Doppler and multipath effects compared to OFDM in underwater acoustic channels.
- The proposed optimized variational sparse Bayesian (OVSB) channel estimation method, based on variational inference and sparse Bayesian learning, improves channel estimation accuracy and reduces BER in OTFS systems.
- Simulation and practical underwater channel tests validate the performance gains, providing a theoretical and experimental basis for designing high-speed underwater acoustic communication systems.
For manufacturers and system integrators deploying autonomous underwater vehicles, these findings highlight OTFS as a promising physical-layer technology to maintain reliable communication during rapid maneuvers, which is critical for coordinated operations and data transmission in marine automation.
Source: 《机器人》期刊 (robot.sia.cn) · Published 2026-05-12 · “基于正交时频空间调制的移动无人平台水声通信算法”