| CPC H04B 7/15 (2013.01) [H04L 43/12 (2013.01); H04W 4/80 (2018.02); H04W 84/04 (2013.01)] | 18 Claims |

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1. A communication system for transmitting and receiving a transmitted signal via a long-range underwater link, the system comprising:
a transmitter configured for acoustically transmitting the transmitted signal via the long-range underwater link;
a plurality of interconnected devices in a short-range non-acoustic network, the plurality of devices including at least one main device and one or more assisting devices, the at least one main device and the one or more assisting devices each configured to receive the acoustically transmitted signal via the long-range underwater link;
wherein the one or more assisting devices are configured to transmit a relayed signal representing the received acoustically transmitted signal at the assisting device to the at least one main device via the short-range non-acoustic network;
wherein the at least one main device is configured to generate output data representing the content of the acoustically transmitted signal based on the acoustically transmitted signal received at the at least one main device and the one or more relayed signals received from the one or more assisting devices;
wherein the at least one main device is configured to identify associated ones amongst a group consisting of the received relayed signals from the one or more assisting devices and the transmitted signal received at the at least one main device, wherein identifying the associated ones amongst the received relayed signals from the one or more assisting devices and the transmitted signal received at the at least one main device comprises comparing timestamps of packets to identify all such packets which correspond to a single packet transmitted from the transmitter and received by the one or more assisting devices and the at least one main device; and
wherein the at least one main device is configured to generate a set of associated signals comprising the identified associated ones amongst the group consisting of the received relayed signals from the one or more assisting devices and the transmitted signal received at the at least one main device, to combine the set of associated signals into a combined signal and to demodulate the combined signal to generate a bit-sequence representing the received transmitted signal.
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