Flexible broadcast UWOC system using an LCVR-based tunable optical splitter.

Abstract

For underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) systems, using an omnidirectional light source to construct a broadcast system will require considerable energy due to high geometric loss and water attenuation. In addition, high-sensitivity photon detectors usually have a limited dynamic range, therefore limiting communication distance. In this Letter, a broadcast UWOC system, based on liquid crystal variable retarders (LCVRs) and polarization beam splitters (PBSs), is proposed to allocate user power in accordance with user-specific channel conditions. By adjusting the driving alternating current (AC) voltage of LCVRs to change the input light polarization, different proportions of light can be allocated to different PBS ports before broadcasting to different users. In a dual-user transmitter for the proof-of-concept, the output power dynamic range and the additional insertion loss for the first user are 19.17 dB and 0.91 dB, respectively. For the second user, the performance degrades to 17.33 dB and 1.26 dB, respectively. The step size of power adjustment is less than 0.063 dB. To verify the effectiveness of power adjustment in UWOC systems, a 7-m/243.2-Mbps single-user UWOC system is designed with a water attenuation coefficient ranging from 0.50 dB/m to 2.35 dB/m. All bit error rates (BERs) can decrease to below the forward error correction (FEC) limit by adjusting the LCVR driving voltage. The adjustable range of communication distance could be extended from 4.2 m to 13.19 m with a channel attenuation coefficient of 1.44 dB/m. Finally, a dual-user UWOC experiment is conducted and proves that the proposed system can still work in a multi-user system. The proposed system is proven to be effective for improving the anti-jamming capability and flexibility of UWOC networks.