Impact of angular pointing error on BER performance of underwater optical wireless links

Ruben-Boluda-Ruiz, Antonio García-Zambrana, Beatriz del Castillo-Vázquez, Steve Hranilovic
January 2020
Cite DOI URL

Abstract

Even in clear ocean water, underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) is impaired not only by absorption and scattering, but also by oceanic turbulence and dynamic pointing errors which result in a fading channel, degrading the bit error rate (BER) performance. In this paper, for the first time, we quantify analytically the trade-off between geometric loss and misalignment in underwater scattering channels. A novel geometric loss model is developed which is used to compute the average BER in the presence of absorption and scattering over salinity-induced oceanic turbulence channels. Our findings suggest that UOWC systems are less sensitive to angular pointing errors due to jitter since scattering is able to alleviate such a fading effect at the expense of a higher attenuation due to geometric spread. Monte Carlo simulation results are further included to verify the developed BER expression which is valid over a wide range of signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). Finally, the impact of inter-symbol interference (ISI) is also quantified by measuring the optical power penalty. © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

Type
Journal article
Publication
Optics Express
Bit-Error Rate Economic and Social Effects Errors Fading Channels Geometry Marine Communication Monte Carlo Methods Optical Communication Turbulence Water Absorption Absorption and Scatterings BER Performance Bit Error Rate (BER) Performance Oceanic Turbulence Optical-Wireless Communications Optical Wireless Link Pointing Errors Scattering Channels Article Monte Carlo Method Punishment Quantitative Analysis Salinity Signal Noise Ratio Wireless Communication Signal to Noise Ratio
Antonio García-Zambrana
Antonio García-Zambrana
Professor of Telecommunications Engineering

Professor at the University of Málaga working on wireless optical communications, free-space optical links, underwater optical wireless communications, visible light communications, and FPGA/RFSoC-based real-time prototyping.

Beatriz del Castillo-Vázquez
Beatriz del Castillo-Vázquez
Associate Professor of Telecommunications Engineering

Associate Professor at the University of Málaga working on wireless optical communications, free-space optical links, underwater optical wireless communications, optical channel modelling and system-level performance analysis.