The Investigation of Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Links Using the Total Reflection at the Air-Water Interface in the Presence of Waves

Zhijian Lv; Gui He; Hang Yang; Rui Chen; Yuxin Li; Wenwei Zhang; Chengfeng Qiu; Zhaojun Liu

doi:10.3390/photonics9080525

Photonics (Jul 2022)

The Investigation of Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Links Using the Total Reflection at the Air-Water Interface in the Presence of Waves

Zhijian Lv,
Gui He,
Hang Yang,
Rui Chen,
Yuxin Li,
Wenwei Zhang,
Chengfeng Qiu,
Zhaojun Liu

Affiliations

Zhijian Lv: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
Gui He: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
Hang Yang: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
Rui Chen: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
Yuxin Li: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
Wenwei Zhang: Sino-German College of Intelligent Manufacturing, Shenzhen Technology University, Shenzhen 518118, China
Chengfeng Qiu: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
Zhaojun Liu: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9080525
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 9, no. 8
p. 525

Abstract

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With the development of underwater exploration, underwater networking is in urgent demand. At present, underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) is primarily based on line-of-sight (LOS) communication links. However, the underwater environment is so complicated that LOS communication links are easily affected by a couple of factors such as air bubbles, turbidity, oceanic turbulence, and so on. We put forward novel UWOC links using the total reflection at the air-water interface, which can mitigate those phenomena. This paper aims to investigate a UWOC link based on the total reflection at the air-water interface. In our work, we achieved the maximum data rate of 300 Mb/s and a bit error rate (BER) of 3.10 × 10−3 under the forward error correction (FEC) with the total reflection angle of 7°. Furthermore, we verified the performance of the total reflection-based UWOC links at the air-water interface in the presence of waves and evaluated the impact on the UWOC links when the frequency and amplitude of the waves varied.

Published in Photonics

ISSN: 2304-6732 (Online)
Publisher: MDPI AG
Country of publisher: Switzerland
LCC subjects: Technology: Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General): Applied optics. Photonics
Website: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics

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