MIMO-aided Efficient Communication Resource Scheduling Scheme in VDES

As demands for the maritime communications increase, a variety of functions and information are required to exchange via elements of maritime systems, which leads communication traffic increases in maritime frequency bands, especially in VHF (Very High Frequency) band. Thus, effective resource management is crucial to the future maritime communication systems not only to the typical terrestrial communication systems. VHF data exchange system (VDES) enables to utilize more flexible configuration according to the communication condition. This paper focuses on the VDES communication system among VDES terminals such as shore stations, ship stations and aids to navigation (AtoN) to address efficient resource allocation. We propose a resource management method considering a MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technique in VDES, which has been widely used for modern terrestrial wireless networks but not for marine environments by scheduling the essential communication resources. We introduce the general channel model in marine environment and give two metrics, spectral and the energy efficiencies to examine our resource scheduling algorithm. Based on the simulation results and analysis, the proposed method provides a possibility to enhance spectral and energy efficiencies. Additionally, we present a trade-off relationship between spectral and energy efficiencies. Furthermore, we examine the resource efficiencies related to the imperfect channel estimation.