A metric to quantify the time-varying characteristics of underwater acoustic communication channels

Underwater acoustic communication signals suffer from time dispersion due to time-varying multipath propagation in the ocean. This leads to intersymbol interference, which in turn degrades the performance of the communication system. Typically, the channel correlation functions are employed to describe these characteristics. In this paper, a metric called the channel average correlation coefficient (CACC) is proposed from the correlation function to quantify the time-varying characteristics. It has a theoretical negative relationship with communication performance. Comparative analysis involving simulations and experimental data processing highlights the superior effectiveness of CACC over the traditional metric, the channel coherence time.