Design and development of a high-speed underwater acoustic modem

The design, development and performance of an acoustic modem using spread spectrum modulation techniques in order to reduce multipath interference is detailed in this thesis. The design also includes a method to correct for Doppler shifts in the received data. Finally, error detection and correction are utilized in order to improve the robustness of the transmitted data. The results of field experiments with the modem are used to analyze the performance of the modem under a variety of conditions. These results are then used as a basis from which to draw conclusions about the spread spectrum technique.