General Stochastic Channel Model and Performance Evaluation for Underwater Wireless Optical Links

摘要

In underwater wireless optical communications (UWOC), absorption and scattering characterize the link properties since photons may suffer these two processes with energy loss and direction change, respectively, when interacting with water molecules or suspended particles. In this work, we consider the effects of absorption and scattering on the probability distribution, i.e., normalized intensity distribution, of photons in space and time domains. Our prior work proposed a stochastic channel model to represent the spatial–temporal probability distribution of propagated photons only for nonscattering and single scattering components of UWOC links. However, multiple scattering will dominate the scattering behavior of the underwater environment with long communication distance and/or more turbid water type. In this work, we take into account all three types of components including nonscattering, single and multiple scattering, and present a more general stochastic channel model which fits well with Monte Carlo simulations in turbid water environment such as coastal and harbor water. Based on the proposed channel model, we also evaluate the performance of path loss, scattering richness, and attenuation of UWOC links. Numerical results suggest that multiple scattering can compensate the path loss overestimated by traditional approaches. Furthermore, scattering richness and attenuation tend to increase but have opposite effects to raise and reduce the received probabilities of higher order scattered photons, respectively, as link range increases.