Performance Evaluation of UOWC Systems from an Empirical Channel Model Approach for Air Bubble-Induced Scattering
Abstract
Underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) systems provide the potential to establish secure high-data-rate communication links in underwater environments. The uniqueness of oceanic impairments, such as absorption, scattering, oceanic turbulence, and air bubbles demands accurate statistical channel models based on empirical measurements for the development of UOWC systems adapted to different types of water and link conditions. Recently, generalized Gamma and a mixture of two generalized Gamma probability density functions (PDF) were proposed to describe the statistical behavior of small and large air bubbles, respectively, when considering several levels of particle-induced scattering. In this paper, we derive novel closed-form analytic expressions to compute the bit error rate (BER) and outage performance using both proposed PDFs for various scattering conditions. Furthermore, simple asymptotic expressions are obtained to determine the diversity order of each scenario. Monte Carlo simulation results verify the obtained theoretical expressions. Our results also reveal that UOWC systems present lower BER and outage performance under more turbid water cases with respect to the tap water case due to the higher diversity order and despite the significant increases in pathloss at short link distances. Particle-induced scattering provides an inherent mechanism of turbid waters to mitigate air bubble-induced fluctuations and light blockages. © 2024 by the authors.
Pedro Salcedo-Serrano
Postdoctoral Researcher / External Collaborator
Postdoctoral researcher and external collaborator of WOCLab working on optical wireless communications, underwater optical links, channel modelling and performance analysis.
José María Garrido-Balsells
Professor of Telecommunications Engineering
Professor at the University of Málaga working on wireless optical communications, free-space optical links, underwater optical wireless communications, optical channel modelling and experimental communication systems.
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.
Antonio Puerta-Notario
Emeritus Professor / Senior Researcher
Emeritus Professor at the University of Málaga with a long-standing research activity in signal theory, optical wireless communications, visible light communications, free-space optical links and communication system modelling.
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.