Underwater wireless optical communications links: perspectives, challenges and recent trends

Abstract

Abstract Underwater wireless optical communication (UOWC) systems have lately garnered a significant amount of attention for both academic purposes and trial applications. Although the idea is not new, the fact that seawater has a smaller window of absorption for blue-green light has reawakened interest in it, and it has grown an essential attraction because of its high bandwidth, it can cover a wide variety of underwater activities as compared to radio frequency and acoustic technologies. To monitor pollution, maintain oil pipelines, monitor climate change, conduct offshore investigations, and conduct oceanography research, the wireless transmission of information underwater technology is of importance to the military, industrial, and scientific organizations all around the world. The use of wavelengths of visible light to transmit secure data across point-to-point connections in underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) compares well with the usage of free-space optical (FSO) communications. However, UWOC systems also have a huge amount of absorption and scattering introduced by the aquatic channels. Different from standard terrestrial free-space optical communication, many unique system design strategies have been investigated in recent years to solve these technological issues. This article presents a vision as well as various obstacles in the domain of underwater optical wireless communication, a detailed overview, and comparison of underwater communications techniques (UOWC) links, basic modulation technique techniques, and c pursuits on UWOC.