The underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) technology is vastly developing due to its advantages of high bandwidth, large capacity, and low latency. However, the complex underwater channel characteristics and strict requirements on pointing, acquisition, and tracking (PAT) systems hinder the performance and augmentation of UWOC. A large-area scintillating-fiber-based UWOC system is proposed to solve the PAT issue while offering high-speed, omnidirectional data detection over turbulent underwater channels. In this work, we utilized 120-cm2 coverage area scintillating fibers as a photoreceiver. The large area scintillating fibers realize omnidirectional signal detection by absorbing an incident optical radiation, re-emitting it at a longer wavelength, and then guided to the end of the fibers connected with an avalanche photodetector. The UWOC system offers a 3-dB bandwidth of 66.62 MHz, and a 250 Mbit/s data rate is achieved using non-return-to-zero on-off keying (NRZ-OOK) modulation. The system was tested over a 1.5-m underwater channel under turbulences of air bubbles, temperature, salinity, and turbidity. We generated bubbles by blowing 0.20, 0.63, and 1.98 mL/s speeds of Nitrogen gas flow. A temperature gradient of 1.33 and 2.67 Celsius/m was introduced by circulating warm and cold water at the two tank ends, respectively. Salinity concentrations at 35 and 40 ppt were introduced to emulate the salinity in the Red Sea. Lastly, different volumes of MaaloxTM were added into pure water to emulate pure sea, coastal ocean, and turbid harbor water. The fiber-based UWOC system operates under those turbulence conditions with error-free communication and 0% outage probability.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.