Robust Interference Cancellation of Chirp and CW Signals for Underwater Acoustics Applications

We focus on mitigating strong interferences that can jam underwater acoustics emissions aimed for detection or communications. We consider two types of interferences: narrowband like continuous waveform and wideband like chirp. Both the types are assumed to be strong, such that, without interference cancellation, performance is poor. We offer two interference canceling algorithms, each corresponding to a different interference type. The two algorithms are designed to mitigate strong interference, while maintaining the desired signal intact. These algorithms can be executed sequentially to manage both types of interference simultaneously. Our solution takes advantage of the sparsity of the underwater acoustic channel, as well as the assumed correlation of the interference signals. Numerical simulations, as well as results from a sea experiment, show that our algorithms significantly reduce the effect of strong interferences for the fast time-varying and long-delay spread underwater acoustic channel.