Blind equalization of underwater acoustic channels using implicit higher-order statistics

In order to reduce the length of transmission time slots and energy consumption of underwater modems, this work focuses on equalization without the need for training sequences. This type of equalization is known as blind equalization. A blind equalizer cascade based on higher-order statistics is presented and evaluated using sea-trial replay data. The subcomponents of the cascade use increasingly stringent nonlinear cost criteria rooted in the constant modulus algorithm. Initial results reveal that the cascade can cope with the time variance of a realistic channel and largely mitigates its convolutional error.