Real-time video transmission using massive MIMO in an underwater acoustic channel

In this paper we propose to use massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems in order to boost the throughput over a 1000 m vertically-configured time-varying underwater acoustic channel (UAC). We compare the bit error rate (BER) performance of un-coded and Turbo-coded massive MIMO systems based on filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) modulation and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). A modified FBMC system is considered whereby complex data symbols are transmitted instead of real-valued ones. This is made possible by spreading the data symbols in time while still ensuring maximum bandwidth efficiency and low complexity. It is shown that the coded FBMC systems outperform the coded OFDM systems both in terms of error performance and bit rate for similar massive MIMO configuration. Video transmission is evaluated over the UAC with the systems that achieve the highest bit rates and it is shown that real-time transmission is possible with acceptable video quality over the long range acoustic link.