Design and implementation of omni-directional light source and receiving system used in underwater wireless optical communication

Abstract

Underwater wireless optical communication is a communication mode which uses light as an information carrier and water as transmission medium. As a result of the inherent characteristics of the light waves, underwater wireless optical communication has the advantages of high transmission rate, good security, and strong anti-interference ability. It is suitable for high-speed, short-range communication between underwater mobile vehicles. Underwater optical wireless communication system designed in this paper is composed of the omni-directional communication light source and the receiving system. In the omni-directional communication light source, the laser beams with small divergence angle of 532nm wavelength produced by modulated laser are expanded through a combination refraction-reflection solid and then obtain more than 2π space divergence angle. The paper use TRACEPRO simulation tool to help design a combination solid composed of the lens, conical reflector and parabolic reflector, and test in the air and underwater, the result shows that the effect is fine. Unlike in the air, light attenuation is heavy in the water and a large range of variations in light intensity at different distances appear during underwater optical communication. In order to overcome this problem, the paper use a small photomultiplier as the detection device, design the receiving system using the automatic gain control technique. Underwater wireless optical communication system designed in this paper has the characteristics of small size, low power dissipation and the omni-directional communication function, it is suitable for application in the UUV, AUV, Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV) and other underwater mobile platform, it realizes point-to-point communications and point-to-multipoint communications.