A review of channel modeling techniques for underwater acoustic communications

Ruoyu Su, R. Venkatesan, and Cheng Li

Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science Memorial University of Newfoundland St. Johns, NL, Canada Email: {ruoyu.su, venky, licheng} @mun.ca
Abstract-Underwater acoustic sensor networks have many useful applications, including oceanographic data collection, pollution monitoring, offshore exploration, disaster prevention and assisted navigation. The wave equation gives the theoretical basis of the mathematical models of underwater acoustic propagation. Based on the five canonical solutions to the wave equation, we can obtain five models for underwater channel: ray-theoretical model, normal mode model, multipath expansion model, fast-field model and parabolic equation model. In this paper, we conduct a survey of modeling techniques for underwater acoustic channels. We introduce the properties of acoustic propagation in seawater and different underwater acoustic channel models. Moreover, we compare the characteristics of each model from different aspects. Index Termsunderwater acoustic channel, model, wave equation

of acoustic propagation through sea water which includes sound speed distribution, attenuation and absorption of sea water and transmission loss. Furthermore, we introduce the wave equation which is derived from the fundamental equations of state, conservation and motion. According to the different solutions of the wave equation, we show five models of underwater acoustic propagation and compare their characteristics. II. ACOUSTIC PROPAGATION PROPERTIES IN SEAWATER A. Sound speed distribution The speed of sound in seawater is a fundamental oceanographic variable that determines the behaviour of sound propagation in the ocean. Many empirical formulas have been developed over the years for calculating sound speed using values of water temperature, salinity and pressure/depth. Each of these has its own ranges of temperature, salinity, pressure (or depth) and standard error. A simplified expression for the sound speed is: c= 1449.2 + 4.6T 0.055T 2 + 0.00029T 3 (1) +(1.34 0.01T )( S 35) + 0.016 z , where c is the speed of sound in seawater, T is the water temperature (in degrees Celsius), S is the salinity (in parts per thousand) and z is the depth (in meters). For most cases, (1) is sufficiently accurate. However, more accurate sound-speed formulas may be required when propagation distances are derived from time-of-flight measurements [4]. According to the different characteristics of seawater, sound speed profiles could be divided into some layers. As shown in Fig. 1 [3], the sonic layer is below the sea surface, where the speed of sound is influenced by local changes in heating, cooling and wind action. The sound speed increases with the depth in this region, which is termed sonic layer. This surface layer is usually associated with a well-mixed layer of near-isothermal water. This well-mixed region could be viewed as the mixed layer [3] [5]. The thermocline below the mixed layer is a region of the water column where the temperature rapidly decreases with increasing depth as shown in the right of Fig. 1. In this region, the sound speed also decreases with depth. Therefore, the water column of this region has a negative sound speed gradient. The region below the thermocline and extending to the sea floor is defined as the deep isothernal layer that has a nearly

I.

INTRODUCTION

Ocean could be considered as a time-varying and spatial-varying environment, which poses challenges to the development of effective underwater acoustic communications systems. The electromagnetic signals in sea water have limitation of long distance transmission because of their high rate of attenuation and absorption. Optical signals are also rapidly absorbed in the sea water and scatter due to suspended particles in the upper part of the water column [ 1 ][ 2 ]. Compared with the characteristics of electromagnetic signals and optical signals, acoustic signals are preferred for underwater communication. Limited and distance-dependent bandwidth, high propagation delays, severe time-varying multipath and fading channel conditions make the underwater acoustic channel quite different from the commonly used terrestrial channel. Accurately modeling the underwater acoustic channel is a significant step towards the estimation of sensor networks underwater channel capacity and the study of the performance of upper layer application techniques. Each underwater acoustic propagation channel model has inherent merits and limitations in their applicability, which are represented in the range, frequency and transmission loss. We could use the wave equation to describe the acoustic propagation process in the seawater because the sound propagation could be considered as a kind of wave motion. Moreover, based on the different canonical solutions of the wave equation [ 3], we could obtain five different kinds of underwater acoustic propagation models to show the characteristics of underwater acoustic channel. In this paper, we begin with a short discussion of properties

constant temperature. In this layer, the speed of sound increases with depth because of the pressure effects (pressure increases with increasing depth). Therefore, the sound-speed profile becomes nearly linear with a positive gradient. According to Fig. 1, we could obtain the minimum sound speed between the negative sound speed gradient in the thermocline and the positive gradient in the deep isothermal layer. The depth of this minimum sound-speed is defined to as the sound channel axis.

composition. As its composition may vary from hard rock to soft mud, the sea floor is more variable in its acoustic properties. One feature that is distinct from the sea surface is that the bottom can be considered to be constant over time. In contrast, the configuration of the sea surface is statistically in a state of change when the wind velocity changes. Furthermore, underwater ridges and seamounts can also block the propagation of sound. For instant, seamounts can mask targets of interest by either providing false targets or by shadowing targets of interest [3]. E. Transmission Loss Acoustic intensity (I) is the standard unit of measure for underwater acoustic propagation, which is sound pressure flow (or power) per unit area: (3) , c where p is the pressure amplitude, is the density of sea water and c is the sound speed in sea water. Transmission loss can be defined as ten times the logarithm (the base is 10 in this and subsequent equations) of the ratio of the reference intensity (Iref) measured at a point 1 m from the source, to the intensity (I), measured at a distant point and is expressed in decibels: I ref (4) TL = 10 log I Transmission loss may result from geometrical spreading. The spreading loss is a measurement of the signal weakening when it propagates outward from the source. We consider two importance types of geometrical spreading in underwater acoustics: spherical spreading and cylindrical spreading. Fig. 2 shows the principles of spherical spreading and cylindrical spreading [7].
I= p
2

Figure 1. Relationship between temperature and sound speed

A critical depth is referred as that the depth below the axis at which the sound speed equals the near surface maximum value. The depth excess is defined as the vertical distance between the critical depth and the sea floor. B. Attenuation and absorption in seawater In the ocean, some parts of the acoustic energy are absorbed by both the seawater and seafloor. The attenuation coefficient of sea water is larger than that of freshwater because of chemical relaxations of boric acid B(OH3) and magnesium sulphate MgSO4. We could express the attenuation coefficient (dB/km) by Thorp, which is valid at low frequency (100 Hz-3 kHz): (2) , 2 2 1+ f 4100 f where is the attenuation coefficient (dB/km), f is frequency (kHz) [6]. C. Sea surface The surface of the sea could be considered as a reflector and a scatterer of sound. When the surface of sea becomes rough due to wind, the reflection losses are no longer near zero. Moreover, wave height is another important factor to affects sea-surface roughness. Apart from reflection losses, other acoustic effects could occur at the sea surface. For example, frequency-smearing and shifting effect on constant-frequency signals could be produced by sea surface. Quick and large fluctuations of amplitude and intensity at sea surface could be produced by reflection [3]. D. Sea floor The effects of sea floor are more complicated than those of the sea surface because of its diverse and multilayered
= 0.102 f
2

40.7 f

R D

Cylindrical spreading

Spherical spreading

Figure 2. Spherical and cylindrical spreading

Assume a point source in an unbounded homogenous medium. The power of the source is distributed over the surface area of a sphere surrounding the source. Assuming the medium to be lossless, the intensity is inversely proportional to the surface of the sphere. Equation (5) gives the spherical spreading loss, which is suitable in the nearfield ( r D ): (5) TL = 20 log r , where r is the horizontal range. The medium has plane upper and lower boundaries as shown in right side of Fig. 2. The intensity of farfield changed with horizontal range becomes inversely proportional to the

surface of a cylinder of radius R and depth D. (6) TL = 10 log r Equation (6) shows the cylindrical spreading loss, which is applied only at longer ranges ( r >> D ) [7].

III. WAVE EQUATION

Wave equation is the theoretical basis of the mathematical models of acoustic propagation. In an ideal fluid, the wave equation (with no viscous loss in propagation) is derived from hydrodynamics and the adiabatic relation between pressure and density [7]. Eulers equation (Newtons 2nd Law) u (7) p = 0 , t where 0 is fluid static density, p is the sound pressure, u is the particle velocity, is gradient and t is the time. The Eulers equation shows the relationship between sound pressure and vibration velocity of particle. The adiabatic equation of state p 1 (8) = 2 , t c t where c is the speed of sound in an ideal fluid and is the density of fluid. The adiabatic equation of state shows the relationship between sound pressure and fluid density. The equation for conservation of mass (9) = 0 u t This equation gives the relationship between density and the particle velocity. Wave equation From (7), (8) and (9), we could obtain the wave equation of sound field as a function of p after removing u and 0 .
1 p 2 (10) p= , 2 2 c t where 2 is Laplacian operator. Assuming a constant density in space, we can obtain the standard form of the wave equation after introducing the scalar potential function :
2

(13) r r z r The Helmholtz equation (12) is viewed as the time-independent or frequency-domain wave equation. In cylindrical coordinates, (13) is commonly referred to as the elliptic reduced wave equation. Different theoretical approaches are applicable to the Helmholtz equation, which depend on the specific geometrical assumptions made for the propagation and the type of solution chosen for [7]. In order to efficiently describe the different approaches, we could make a classification based on five canonical solutions to the wave equation: ray theory, normal mode, multipath expansion, fast field and parabolic equation techniques. In addition, the potential function normally shows the acoustic field pressure through the theoretical development of these five techniques. In this case, the transmission loss (TL) can be calculated as:
2 2

+ k ( z ) = 0
2

TL = 10 log[ ] = 20 log
2 1

(14)

If phases are considered, the resulting transmission loss is referred to as coherent; otherwise, phase differences are ignored and the transmission loss is termed incoherent transmission loss [4]. A division of the five underwater acoustic propagation channels models can be made according to their dependence on the range. Range independence indicates that a model consider a horizontally stratified ocean whose properties vary only as a function of depth. On the contrary, range dependence means that a model could consider some properties of the ocean medium that are allowed to vary as a function of range or the angle of the receiver. According these definitions, normal-mode model, multipath expansion model and fast-field model are range independent, ray-theoretical model and parabolic equation model are range dependent [3]. IV. UNDERWATER ACOUSTICS PROPAGATION CHANNEL MODELS A. Ray-theoretical models Ray-theoretical models calculate transmission loss on the basis of ray tracing theory. It starts with the Helmholtz equation. The solution for is assumed to be the product of a pressure amplitude function A = A( x, y, z ) and a phase function P = P( x, y, z ) : (15) Substituting this solution into the Helmholtz equation and separating real and imaginary terms yields: 1 2 2 2 (16) A [ P ] + k = 0 A

1 2 (11) = 2 2 c t In frequency domain, it is convenient to solve (11) by assuming a solution with a frequency dependence of e it ( = 2 f and f is the acoustic frequency). We then obtain the Helmholtz equation:
2

= Ae

iP

+k = 0, where = = k / c 2 / is the wavenumber and is the wavelength. In cylindrical coordinates, we could obtain:
2 2

(12)

2[A P ] + A P = 0 (17) Equation (16) includes the real terms that define the geometry of the rays. Equation (17) is transport equation that contains the imaginary terms and determines the wave amplitudes. This separation of functions is under the
2

assumption that amplitude with position varies more slowly than does the phase. In other words, the sound speed should not change much over one wavelength. Under this approximation, (16) could reduce to:

[ P ] = k (18) Equation (18) is the Eikonal equation. Surfaces of constant phase (P = constant) are the wavefronts. In Eikonal equation, the acoustic path length is considered as a function of the path endpoints. Moreover, Eikonal equation could be used to derive differential ray equations [3]. The above expressions for coherent transmission loss provide the pressure for a single ray path. At any point, the pressure field includes all the eigenrays. Based on its intensity and phase at that point, each eigenray contributes to the complex pressure field. The intensity could be obtained by summing up all these eigenrays. In the nearfield, we consider 3 typical eigenrays: a directly ray, a bottom-bounce ray and a surface-bounce ray. The remaining eigenrays strike the bottom at steeper angles than the critical angle and are therefore strongly attenuated. At longer ranges, the paths that strike the surface and bottom several times or eigenrays following different refracted paths could be considered to be attenuated.
2 2

where G ( z , z0 ; ) is the Greens function, H 0 is a zero-order first kind of Hankel function[3], and z0 is the source depth. Normal mode approaches have limitation on the acoustic frequencies below about 500Hz due to computational considerations and not due to any limitations in the underlying physics. Specially, the number of modes required to generate a reliable prediction of TL increase in proportion to the acoustic frequency. However, upper frequency limitation on the multi-kilohertz range can be achieved by some simplifying assumptions regarding the complexity of the ocean environment [8].
(1)

G ( z , z0 ; ) H 0 ( r ) d ,
(1)

(22)

B. Normal Mode Models Normal mode models are from an integral representation of the wave equation. We assume cylindrical symmetry in a stratified medium in order to obtain a practical solution, which means the environment changes as a function of depth only. Then the solution for the potential function in (13) could be written in cylindrical coordinates as the product of a depth function F ( z ) and a range function S ( z ) . = F ( z ) S (r ) (19) We could use as the separation constant for a separation of variables. The two resulting equations are:
2

C. Multipath expansion models In multipath expansion models, we use the WKB (Wentzel, Kramers and Brillouin) approximation that can obtain solution of (20) based on the normal mode model. In this case, every normal mode could be shown as the corresponding rays. Therefore, multipath expansion models are range independent [3]. Theoretically, multipath expansion models could be viewed as an integral expression of the wave equation, which has an infinite integrals set indicating some particular ray paths. According a limited interval of the real -axis, this approach could directly evaluate the infinite integral of (22). Therefore, only certain modes are considered. On the other hand, an angle-limited source can be simulated by using a restricted number of modes. As implemented, this approach is particularly applicable in deep water at intermediate and high frequencies [7]. D. Fast-field models Fast-field theory is based on wavenumber integration. In seismology, it could be viewed as the reflectivity method or discrete wavenumber method. Equation (22) is replaced by the first term in the asymptotic expansion:
H 0 ( r )
(1)

d F dz
2

+ (k ) F = 0
2 2

(20)

and
d S
2 2

j r

for r >> 1

(23)

1 dS

0 + S =
2

Therefore, (22) can now be written as (21) (24) r The infinite integral could be evaluated by means of the fast Fourier transform (FFT), which provides values of the potential function at n discrete points for a given source-receiver geometry. This model based on fast-field theory did not allow for environmental range dependence. However, further research proved these methods useful in modeling range-dependent wave propagation including the effecting of compressional-to-shear conversion and elastic mode coupling [9].

dr r dr Equation (20) is the depth equation, which describes the standing wave portion of the solution. Equation (21) is the range equation that describes the traveling wave portion of the solution. Each normal mode could be viewed as a traveling wave in the horizontal (r) direction and as a standing wave in the depth (z) direction. The normal mode equation poses an eigenvalue problem whose solution is known as the Greens function. Equation (22) is the zero-order Bessel equation. Its solution can be written in terms of a zero-order Hankel (1) function ( H 0 ). The full solution for can be expressed by an infinite integral, assuming a monochromatic (single-frequency) point source:

G ( z , z0 ; ) e d
j r

E. Parabolic equation models (PE models) In parabolic equation (PE) models, researchers replace the elliptic reduced wave equation (13) with a PE. The PE is

derived by assuming that speeds of energy propagation approximately equal the shear speeds or the compressional speeds. The basic acoustic equation is: + k02 n 2 = 0, (25) where n is the refraction index (c/c0), k0 is the reference wavenumber ( / c0 ), ( = 2 f ) is the source frequency, is the velocity potential, c0 is the reference sound speed and c(r, , z) is the sound speed in range (r), azimuthal angle ( ) and depth (z). Similar with (13), we could obtain (26) in cylindrical coordinates: 2 1 2 + + 2 + k 2 n 2 ( z ) = 0 (26) 2
r r r z

TABLE I COMPARISON AMONG DIFFERENT ACOUSTIC PROPAGATION CHANNEL MODELS Model type Ray theory Normal mode Multipath expansion Fast field Parabolic equation Shallow Water Low High frequency frequency RI RD RI RD N B N B L N L N N B L B L B N B L N N N Deep water Low High frequency frequency RI RD RI RD L B L B L L L N N B B L B L L B N N N L

After neglecting azimuthal angle coupling, we could assume a form of solution: = (r , z ) S (r ) (27) and
[
2

S
2

1 S r r

]+

S[

1 2 S 2 2 +( + ) + k0 n ] = 0, r S r r

(28)
[1]

REFERENCE
J. Preisig, Acoustic propagation considerations for underwater acoustic communications network development, ACM SIGMOBILE Mobile Computing and Communications Review, vol 11, issue 4, October, 2007, pp: 2-10. L. Liu, S. Zhou, S. Cui and Jun-Hong Cui, Prospects and Problems of Wireless Communications for Underwater Sensor Networks, Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, Special Issue on Underwater Sensor Networks, Wiley, May, 2008. P. C. Etter, Underwater Acoustic Modeling and Simulation, 3rd ed., Spon Press, 2003. L. Berkhovskikh and Y. Lysanov, Fundamentals of Ocean Acoustics, Springer, 1982. A. Sehgal, I. Tumar, and J. Schonwalder, Variability of Available Capacity due to the Effects of Depth and Temperature in the Underwater Acoustic Communication Channel, OCEANS 2009-EUROPE, 2009, Bremen, 2009, pp: 1-6. W.H.Thorp, Analytic description of the low-frequency attenuation coefficient, J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol.42, 1967, pp: 270. F.B.Jensen, W.A.Kuperman, M.B.Porter and H.Schmidt, Computational Ocean Acoustics, 2nd ed., Springer-Verlag, 2000. M. J. Buckingham, Ocean-acoustic propagation models, J. Acoustique, Jun. 1992, pp: 223-287. P. Gerstoft and H. Schmidt, A boundary element approach to ocean seismoacoustic facet reverberation, J.Acoust. Soc. Amer.,vol 89, 1991, pp: 16291642.

where ( z ) is the envelope function. When separating (28), making the farfield assumption and introducing the zero-order Hankel function, we could obtain the simplified parabolic wave equation as:

2 2

[2]

r z In this equation, n depends on depth (z), range (r) and azimuth ( ) [7]. When the frequencies are higher than about 500Hz, PE models seems impractical due to excessive execution times. Computational intensity is proportional to the number of range-interval steps. The step size decreases and more steps are necessary to achieve the desired prediction range as the frequency increases [3].

+ 2ik 0

+ k 0 ( n 1) =0
2 2

(29)

[3] [4] [5]

[6] [7] [8] [9]

V.

SUMMARY

It is difficult to use only one model to captures all the acoustic propagation characteristics in underwater environments. In this paper, we introduce five different underwater acoustic propagation channel models based on wave equation, which give different explanation on acoustic propagation in seawater. Table I shows different characteristics of the five underwater acoustic models for different water depths, frequencies and ranges. Note that low frequency is less than 500 Hz and high frequency is more than 500 Hz, which are some arbitrary [3]. RI means range-independent environment, RD means range-dependent environment. B means the modeling approach is both applicable (physically) and practical (computationally); L means the modeling approach has limitation on either accuracy or execution speed; N means the modeling approach is neither applicable nor practical.