Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Based on DPSK Modulation and Silicon Photomultiplier

Xinke Tang,Zhongyi Li,Zhen Chen,Hongjie Wang,Rui Jiang,Aidong Zhang,Long Zhang,Wu Shi,Caiming Sun

doi:10.1109/access.2020.3037174

Abstract

In this paper, a promising phase-modulated underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) system with silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) based receiver is proposed for the first time and its feasibility has been experimentally demonstrated in a laboratory environment. The phase modulation enables the additional degree of freedom available for encoding of information in UWOC, given that previous state-of-the-art systems mainly employ intensity modulation (IM) schemes with direct detection (DD). In the proposed UWOC system, the information is encoded in the phase of light wave carrier based on differential phase-shift keying (DPSK). A highly sensitive receiver is built from SiPM, which is able to compensate the transmission loss and dramatically enhances the performance of the DPSK UWOC system. We experimentally show the feasibility of the proposed system at a data rate of 200 Mbps. For comparison, the commonly used avalanche photodiode (APD) based receiver is also tested. Comparing with the APD, the use of SiPM reduces the BERs by about two orders of magnitudes. The minimum required optical power for achieving a BER below the FEC threshold is about −40.2 dBm, which is about 11.6 dB lower than the case of APD.

Highlights

Advanced underwater wireless communication (UWC) techniques are highly demanded for the significantly increased human activities in underwater such as ocean exploration, marine environmental monitoring and oceanography research [1], [2]
It can be seen that Pout is maximized when the Vpp is at about 2.6V, which is fixed at the following experiments as the optimum differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) drive voltage
The results suggest that the proposed underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) system based on DPSK modulation is feasible with either the commonly used avalanche photodiode (APD) or the more sensitive silicon photomultiplier (SiPM), and the DPSK UWOC system using SiPM is able to work under 11.6 dB more transmission loss than using APD

Summary

Introduction

Advanced underwater wireless communication (UWC) techniques are highly demanded for the significantly increased human activities in underwater such as ocean exploration, marine environmental monitoring and oceanography research [1], [2]. UWCs are mainly implemented through the use of acoustic waves. Acoustic communication experiences limited bandwidth (kHz) and relatively high latency, which are not suitable for practical high-speed data transmission applications, such as real-time video transmission [3], [4]. The underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) has been shown as. To the best of author’s knowledge, the current UWOC systems mainly utilize intensity modulation (IM) schemes with direct detection (DD).

Methods

Results

Conclusion