Multipath correlations in underwater acoustic communication channels.

Uncorrelated scattering (US), which assumes that multipath arrivals undergo uncorrelated scattering and are thus uncorrelated, has been the standard model for digital communications including underwater acoustic communications. This paper examines the cross-correlation of multipath arrivals based on at-sea data with different temporal coherence time, assuming quasi-stationary statistics. It is found that multipath arrivals are highly cross-correlated when the channel is temporally coherent, and are uncorrelated when the channel is temporally incoherent. A theoretical model based on the path phase rates and relative-phase fluctuations is used to explain experimentally observed phenomena, assuming the path amplitudes vary slowly compared with the phases. The implications of correlated scattering for underwater acoustic communication channel tracking are discussed.