Abstract
In this paper, we establish a water-to-air (W2A) visible light communication (VLC) link using green light emitting diode (LED), and investigate the coverage characteristics of the designed W2A-VLC link under calm and wavy water conditions. By transmitting a high-frequency sinusoid signal, we extract the variation of link gain. Based on the received signals of an experimental W2A-VLC system, we obtain the real link gains at different receiver points and analyze the channel temporal properties in good link conditions (called link “on” state). It is seen that the mean channel gain under wavy water surface condition can be larger than that under calm water surface condition, especially when the transmitter and receiver are not perfectly aligned, due to the random spatial modulation effect of wavy water surface. Moreover, the “on” state duration and interval can be well fitted by a shifted exponential distribution and a shifted lognormal distribution, respectively. Bit error rate (BER) results reveal the effect of expanded link gain variation under wavy water surface condition. This work provides significant guidance for future works on the communication protocol design and related performance analysis.
Highlights
In recent years, underwater activities and related wireless communication have drawn great interest from both academia and industry [1]–[3]
Bit error rate (BER) results reveal the effect of expanded link gain variation under wavy water surface condition
We have investigated the coverage characteristics of W2A-visible light communication (VLC) link under calm and wavy water conditions
Summary
Underwater activities and related wireless communication have drawn great interest from both academia and industry [1]–[3]. RF signal can travel a long distance (up to tens of kilometers) and achieve a high transmission rate (up to hundreds of Mbps) in the air, they can only propagate few meters through water due to high absorption and attenuation [8]. Acoustic wave will be mostly reflected off the water surface and it suffers high attenuation in the air [9]. In a TARF system, acoustic signal travels as pressure waves causing displacements of the water surface. An airborne radar can monitor and decode these surface perturbations. Such system can operate under waves below 16 cm, the transmission rate is limited to 400 bps at the cost of high hardware complexity
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