Inter-Vector Interference Self-Cancellation Scheme for Differential OSDM in Underwater Acoustic Communications

Differential orthogonal signal-division multiplexing (OSDM) is attractive for underwater acoustic (UWA) communications because it can eliminate channel estimation, resulting in a substantial reduction of complexity at the receiver. However, when the channel is time-varying, it may suffer from serious inter-vector interference (IVI), which is similar to inter-carrier interference (ICI) in differential orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). To mitigate this degradation of system performance, this paper provides a novel two-hop differential OSDM system based on IVI self-cancellation. Although this method improves system reliability at the cost of losing data rate, it is easy to implement in UWA modems. Finally, numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed two-hop differential OSDM system over time-varying UWA channels.