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Improving short to medium range communication over water tides: Why does height matters?
Ref: CISTER-TR-210201       Publication Date: 4, Feb, 2021

Abstract:
Modern observation systems can be composed by heterogeneous entities (e.g., buoys, surface vehicles, on-shore sensors, etc.) that rely on dependable communications for coordination and data collection, often provided by over-water radio-frequency (RF) links. In tide-affected water bodies, RF links at fixed height from the shore can experience the so-called tidal fading, a cyclic time-varying tide-induced interference. To mitigate it, the classical space-diversity reception technique (i.e., the use of two or more receiver antennas positioned at different heights) is often applied, commonly combined with the consideration of having one of the antennas at the largest possible height. Yet, this approach does not always ensure the best performance. In this work, we focus on static over-water links of short to medium range distances that use antennas installed at a few meters above surface. We leverage the geometrical basis of the two-ray model to investigate the optimal single-antenna height design that minimizes overall average path losses over a given tidal range. We then extend this analysis to incorporate a second receiver antenna and identify its optimal antenna height. Analytical results show that our method considerably outperforms the more classical approach, thus enabling superior (average) link capacities. A longer version of this summary was presented at IEEE OCEANS 2020.

Miguel Gutiérrez Gaitán

,

Luís Almeida

,

Pedro Miguel Santos

,

Luis Pinto

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