OFDM For Underwater Acoustic Communication Using FPGA

Underwater wireless communication is of prime importance in ocean research, environmental monitoring, and deep-sea exploration. However, it is greatly affected by signal loss, limited bandwidth, and multipath interference, which complicates reliable data transfer. There has been recent interest in a promising solution that is less susceptible to multipath fading and can accommodate higher data rates. To achieve effective performance underwater, one needs robust error correction. In this project, we have fixed our focus on polar coded Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing OFDM - a system tailored toward underwater communication - incorporating Polar Codes with OFDM. Introduced by Erdal Arıkan, Polar Codes are known for their ability to achieve near-capacity performance and efficiency in encoding and decoding processes. A Polar Coded OFDM system to construct and analyze with the objective of improving the communication reliability and efficiency under different conditions of underwater environments. We have designed a simulation environment by emulating all the underwater communication challenges, including signal attenuation, noise, Doppler shifts, and multipath effects, and our system will evaluate all aspects of the designed system along with bit error rate, data rate, and power efficiency. Our results will be compared to those of conventional uncoded OFDM systems as well as other error-correcting techniques such as Turbo and low density parity check LDPC codes. Ultimately, we hope to produce a communication system that operates with greater reliability and efficiency in the challenging oceanic environment.