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Multi-user Communications for Acoustic OFDM: A Broadband Beamforming Approach

Abstract:

We propose the design of a beamforming technique for multi-user communications over acoustic channels. Our work focuses on multi-carrier modulation in the form of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), which is suitable for broadband acoustic channels. The framework consists of multiple users transmitting to a common base station equipped with a uniform linear array. The base station iteratively steers a beam to each user's propagation path while placing nulls in the direction of other paths. Finally, the multiple paths of the desired user are recombined before data detection. The design concepts are demonstrated in simulation for an underwater channel, and using experimental over-the-air transmissions in an indoor environment of an acoustic communications testbed.