Underwater wireless information transfer is of great interest to the military, industry, and the scientific community, as it plays an important role in tactical surveillance, pollution monitoring, oil control and maintenance, offshore explorations, climate change monitoring, and oceanography research. In order to facilitate all these activities, there is an increase in the number of unmanned vehicles or devices deployed underwater, which require high bandwidth and high capacity for information transfer underwater. Although tremendous progress has been made in the field of acoustic communication underwater, however, it is limited by bandwidth. All this has led to the proliferation of underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC), as it provides higher data rates than the traditional acoustic communication systems with significantly lower power consumption and simpler computational complexities for short-range wireless links. UOWC has many potential applications ranging from deep oceans to coastal waters. However, the biggest challenge for underwater wireless communication originates from the fundamental characteristics of ocean or sea water; addressing these challenges requires a thorough understanding of complex physio-chemical biological systems. In this paper, the main focus is to understand the feasibility and the reliability of high data rate underwater optical links due to various propagation phenomena that impact the performance of the system. This paper provides an exhaustive overview of recent advances in UOWC. Channel characterization, modulation schemes, coding techniques, and various sources of noise which are specific to UOWC are discussed. This paper not only provides exhaustive research in underwater optical communication but also aims to provide the development of new ideas that would help in the growth of future underwater communication. A hybrid approach to an acousto-optic communication system is presented that complements the existing acoustic system, resulting in high data rates, low latency, and an energy-efficient system.

Underwater Optical Wireless Communication

The performance of underwater optical wireless communication systems is severely affected by the turbulence that occurs due to the fluctuations in the index of refraction. Most previous studies assume a simplifying, yet inaccurate, assumption in the turbulence spectrum model that the eddy diffusivity ratio is equal to unity. It is, however, well known that the eddy diffusivities of temperature and salt are different from each other in most underwater environments. In this paper, we obtain a simplified spatial power spectrum model of turbulent fluctuations of the seawater refraction index as an explicit function of eddy diffusivity ratio. Using the derived model, we obtain the scintillation index of optical plane and spherical waves and investigate the effect of the eddy diffusivity ratio.

Effect of eddy diffusivity ratio on underwater optical scintillation index.

Aperture averaging and BER for Gaussian beam in underwater oceanic turbulence

Scintillation index in strong oceanic turbulence

In this paper, on the basis of the extended Huygens–Fresnel principle, a semianalytical expression for describing on-axis scintillation index of a partially coherent flat-topped (PCFT) laser beam of weak to moderate oceanic turbulence is derived; consequently, by using the log-normal intensity probability density function, the bit error rate (BER) is evaluated. The effects of source factors (such as wavelength, order of flatness, and beam width) and turbulent ocean parameters (such as Kolmogorov microscale, relative strengths of temperature and salinity fluctuations, rate of dissipation of the mean squared temperature, and rate of dissipation of the turbulent kinetic energy per unit mass of fluid) on propagation behavior of scintillation index, and, hence, on BER, are studied in detail. Results indicate that, in comparison with a Gaussian beam, a PCFT laser beam with a higher order of flatness is found to have lower scintillations. In addition, the scintillation index and BER are most affected when salinity fluctuations in the ocean dominate temperature fluctuations.

Analyzing the propagation behavior of scintillation index and bit error rate of a partially coherent flat-topped laser beam in oceanic turbulence

In this paper, the performance of underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) links, which is made up of the partially coherent flat-topped (PCFT) array laser beam, has been investigated in detail. Providing high power, array laser beams are employed to increase the range of UWOC links. For characterization of the effects of oceanic turbulence on the propagation behavior of the considered beam, using the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle, an analytical expression for cross-spectral density matrix elements and a semi-analytical one for fourth-order statistical moment have been derived. Then, based on these expressions, the on-axis scintillation index of the mentioned beam propagating through weak oceanic turbulence has been calculated. Furthermore, in order to quantify the performance of the UWOC link, the average bit error rate (BER) has also been evaluated. The effects of some source factors and turbulent ocean parameters on the propagation behavior of the scintillation index and the BER have been studied in detail. The results of this investigation indicate that in comparison with the Gaussian array beam, when the source size of beamlets is larger than the first Fresnel zone, the PCFT array laser beam with the higher flatness order is found to have a lower scintillation index and hence lower BER. Specifically, in the sense of scintillation index reduction, using the PCFT array laser beams has a considerable benefit in comparison with the single PCFT or Gaussian laser beams and also Gaussian array beams. All the simulation results of this paper have been shown by graphs and they have been analyzed in detail.

Scintillation and bit error rate analysis of a phase-locked partially coherent flat-topped array laser beam in oceanic turbulence.

This paper presents a scheme of terahertz radiation generation based on beating of two dark hollow laser beams with different frequencies, the same electric field amplitudes, in actual plasma with spatially periodic density that electron–neutral collisions have taken into account. The main feature of considered hollow laser beams is, having the same power at different beam orders. Because of special distribution in beam intensity gradient in dark hollow laser beam, the produced terahertz radiation has special field profile. The effects of laser and plasma parameters on terahertz radiation generation are investigated analytically. It can be deduced that by increasing beating frequency, efficiency of terahertz generation decreases which can be compensated by manipulating density ripple magnitudes and dark-size adjusting parameter. The intensity of the emitted radiations is found to be highly sensitive to the beam order. Based on the results of this paper, optimization of laser and plasma parameters can increase the efficiency of terahertz radiation generation strongly.

Generation of terahertz radiation in collisional plasma by beating of two dark hollow laser beams

In the present paper, a scheme for generation of terahertz (THz) radiation in electron-neutral collisional plasma based on beating of two Gaussian laser array beams has been proposed. It is shown that the efficiency of THz radiation based on the Gaussian laser array beams can be enhanced drastically in comparison with the efficiency of THz radiation based on the Gaussian one. Furthermore, the producing THz radiation by the Gaussian laser array beams, which has an exclusive field profile, is affected by some array structure parameters. It can also be used to overcome the negative consequences of electron neutral collisions in plasma, which may be occurring in the THz radiation generation process. Optimizing the collisional plasma, laser beams and array structure parameters, THz radiation efficiency up to 0.07% can be obtained in our scheme which is about three times greater than the maximum efficiency obtained for standard (single) Gaussian laser beam. Also, considering the electrostatic energy channel in ...

Terahertz radiation generation and shape control by interaction of array Gaussian laser beams with plasma

Free-space optical communication systems are affected by turbulent atmosphere. The atmospheric transmission is affected by absorption, scattering and turbulence. In this paper, the effects of absorption and scattering are taken into account using Beer’s law and the effects of turbulence are considered in calculating the average intensity distribution. An analytical expression for the average intensity distribution of a partially coherent flat-topped array (PCFTA) beam in turbulent atmosphere is derived based on the extended Huygens–Fresnel principle. The average intensity, power in bucket, signal to noise ratio, and bit error rate of this kind of beam are investigated in details. It is shown by numerical results and analytical methods that the average intensity and link parameters of PCFTA beams change during propagation and these changes are dependent upon both source parameters and weather conditions.

Shole Golmohammady

Papers

Analyzing the propagation behavior of scintillation index and bit error rate of a partially coherent flat-topped laser beam in oceanic turbulence

Scintillation and bit error rate analysis of a phase-locked partially coherent flat-topped array laser beam in oceanic turbulence.

Generation of terahertz radiation in collisional plasma by beating of two dark hollow laser beams

Terahertz radiation generation and shape control by interaction of array Gaussian laser beams with plasma

Reliability analysis of the flat-topped array beam FSO communication link