Impulsive Noise Mitigation in Underwater Acoustic OFDM Systems

Mitigation of impulsive noise has been extensively studied in wireline, wireless radio, and powerline communication systems. However, its study in underwater acoustic (UWA) systems is quite limited. This paper considers impulsive noise mitigation for underwater orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, where the system performance is severely impacted by the channel Doppler effect. We propose a practical approach based on a least squares formulation: First, the positions of impulsive noise are determined in the time domain based on the signal amplitude, and second, impulsive noise samples are jointly estimated with the Doppler shift based on the measurements of the OFDM null subcarriers. Based on the available channel estimate and tentative data symbol decisions, an iterative receiver is further developed. Data sets have been acquired in a recent sea experiment near Kaohsiung city, Taiwan, in May 2013. Performance results based on extensive simulations and collected data sets demonstrate that the proposed receivers effectively mitigate impulsive noise for UWA OFDM systems.