On path loss of NLOS underwater wireless optical communication links

Abstract

In practical underwater wireless optical communications (UWOC), the non-line-of-sight (NLOS) link which utilizes the sea surface to reflect the beam has been presented recently but not fully studied yet. In this paper, we investigate the path loss of NLOS UWOC links based on the Monte Carlo simulations taking the effects of both random sea surface slopes and scattering properties of seawater into account. Numerical results suggest that the random surface slopes induced by the wind may strongly corrupt the received signal. This detrimental effect can be dismissed by scattering light as the attenuation length increases where the multiple scattering light dominates in the received signal.