An Effective Method to Overcome Deep Fading in Maritime Communication–Frequency Hopping Communication

The deep fading effects caused by sea surface diffuse reflection significantly impact the reliability of maritime communication links. This paper analyzes the gain characteristics of maritime communication channels across different frequency bands using the Round Earth Loss (REL) model. By integrating selective combining (SC) techniques, we achieve optimal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gains relative to free space loss and develop an effective frequency hopping algorithm with multi-band pairing to mitigate deep fading issues. To address the complexities of multiple frequency hopping instances, we propose an optimal frequency hopping algorithm with a constrained number of hops. This strategy minimizes unnecessary consumption and complexity while maintaining performance comparable to the original algorithm. Our approach substantially enhances nearshore communication quality, thereby significantly improving the reliability of maritime communication links.