Underwater optical communication performance

for laser beam propagation through

weak oceanic turbulence

Xiang Yi,* Zan Li, and Zengji Liu

State Key Laboratory of Integrated Service Networks, Xidian University, Xian 710071, China
*Corresponding author: yixiang@xidian.edu.cn

Received 11 November 2014; accepted 23 December 2014;

posted 6 January 2015 (Doc. ID 226645); published 12 February 2015

In clean ocean water, the performance of a underwater optical communication system is limited mainly
by oceanic turbulence, which is defined as the fluctuations in the index of refraction resulting from
temperature and salinity fluctuations. In this paper, using the refractive index spectrum of oceanic
turbulence under weak turbulence conditions, we carry out, for a horizontally propagating plane wave
and spherical wave, analysis of the aperture-averaged scintillation index, the associated probability of
fade, mean signal-to-noise ratio, and mean bit error rate. Our theoretical results show that for various
values of the rate of dissipation of mean squared temperature and the temperature–salinity balance
parameter, the large-aperture receiver leads to a remarkable decrease of scintillation and consequently
a significant improvement on the system performance. Such an effect is more noticeable in the plane
wave case than in the spherical wave case. © 2015 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (010.0010) Atmospheric and oceanic optics; (010.4455) Oceanic propagation; (290.5930)
Scintillation; (010.7060) Turbulence.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/AO.54.001273

1. Introduction broadband wireless communications on land, they

There is an increasing interest in exploring the
oceans for scientific, environmental, commercial,
and military purposes, and communication among
various underwater vehicles and sensors is essential.
The transmission of high-resolution video and
images between underwater vehicles requires high-
data-rate wireless communication links. The amount
of data collected and stored by underwater sensors
can be large and should be expected to grow with
the development of underwater sensor networks.
Although underwater acoustic communication is
well-established and practical in many cases, it
becomes increasingly difficult to support high-rate,
large-capacity applications due to serious absorption
and multipath effects at higher carrier frequency.
As for radio waves, which are extensively used for
1559-128X/15/061273-06$15.00/0
© 2015 Optical Society of America
cannot propagate though seawater. In this context,
underwater optical communication is moving to
the forefront of research.
Most of the previous investigations into the perfor-
mance of underwater optical communications were
concerned with the absorption and scattering effects
on optical propagation in different ocean water types
[1–6]. In clean ocean water, the transmission is
optimum in the blue–green spectral region. The cor-
responding absorption and scattering coefficients
can approach 0.1 m−1 [1,3]. The calculations of power
budget performed in these environments show that
reliable underwater optical communication at high
data rates can be achieved as the link distance
increases from several tens of meters to even hun-
dreds of meters [1,2]. However, turbulence effects
are neglected in these studies.
As in the atmosphere, optical turbulence, i.e.,
random fluctuations in the index of refraction, can
appear in the ocean [7]. It is well-known that

20 February 2015 / Vol. 54, No. 6 / APPLIED OPTICS 1273

atmospheric turbulence resulting from temperature where
and humidity fluctuations causes a variety of effects
on an optical wave related to its irradiance fluctua- AT  C0 C−2
1 DT v
−1
AS  C0 C−2 −1
1 DS v ; (2a)
tions (scintillation) and phase fluctuations [8,9].
Scintillation has an important consequence on laser ATS  0.5C0 C−2 −1
1
DT  DS v ; (2b)
communication. Specifically, scintillation can lead to
fading of the received signal below a detectable 3
threshold and eventually to a large performance pen- δ  C21
κη4∕3  C31
κη2 ; (2c)
alty [10–13]. Oceanic turbulence which is controlled 2
by the salinity and temperature fluctuations [14,15] where κ is the magnitude of the spatial frequency,
may have similar influence on underwater optical α  2.6 × 10−4 L∕ deg is a constant, C0  0.72 is the
communications. In clean ocean where the adsorp- Obukhov–Corrsin constant, C1 ≈ 2.35 is the nondi-
tion and scattering effects are not significant, it is mensional constant determined by comparison with
necessary to understand how oceanic turbulence experiment data, the kinematic viscosity v in water
might affect the performance of the underwater medium is much higher than the molecular thermal
optical communication system. diffusivity DT (v∕DT  7) and more so than the
In recent years there have been several studies molecular salinity transport coefficient DS (v∕DS 
that have investigated oceanic turbulence-induced 700) [14], the Kolmogorov microscale η 
v3 ∕ε1∕4
scintillation and the associated bit error rate with ε being the rate of dissipation of turbulent kinetic
(BER) performance [16–18]. In terms of Rytov theory, energy per unit mass of fluid, and χ T is the rate of dis-
numerically evaluated results were presented in sipation of the mean squared temperature altering
[16,17] for the scintillation index (SI) of a horizon- from 10−2 to 10−10 K 2 ∕s (surface water and deep water,
tally propagating plane wave and spherical wave respectively) [7]. The quantity ω varies between −5
that are valid under weak irradiance fluctuations. and 0, defining the contributions of the temperature
The results for the longitudinal and radial scintilla- and salinity distributions to the distribution of the re-
tion associated with the more general Gaussian- fraction index. As ω → −5, the temperature fluctua-
beam wave were also involved in [16]. Very recently tions dominate the refraction index fluctuations,
in [18], the longitudinal component of the SI was whereas at ω → 0, the refraction index fluctuations
formulated for a focused Gaussian beam in weak are mainly determined by the salinity fluctuations.
oceanic turbulence. By using this formulation and
the lognormal distribution of the received irradiance, 3. Aperture-Averaged Scintillation and the Associated
the mean BER was calculated. It has been shown System Performance
that the SI in weak oceanic turbulence increases rap- By means of the ABCD matrix approach illustrated
idly beyond unity within tens of meters, which is in Chapter 6 of [9], the irradiance flux variances over
much shorter than that in atmosphere. the circular aperture for the case of plane wave and
To extend communications distance in the pres- spherical wave under weak turbulence conditions are
ence of oceanic turbulence, one fading-mitigation developed, respectively, by
technique (for example, aperture averaging) should
be intentionally used in underwater optical commu- Z 1Z  
∞ D2 κ 2
nication systems. In this work, based on the refrac- σ 2I;pl
D  8π 2 k2 L κΦn
κ exp −
tive index spectrum of oceanic turbulence, we first 0 0 16
  2 
formulate the SI over the circular aperture for the Lκ ξ
case of a horizontally propagating plane wave and × 1 − cos dκdξ; (3)
k
spherical wave that are valid under weak irradiance
fluctuations. Then, we investigate the associated Z 1Z  
∞ D2 κ 2 ξ2
probability of fade, mean signal-to-noise ratio σ 2I;sp
D  8π 2 k2 L κΦn
κ exp −
(SNR), and mean BER. Finally, we present some 0 0 16
numerical results to illustrate the aperture-   2 
Lκ
averaging effects on the SI and the associated system × 1 − cos ξ
1 − ξ dκdξ; (4)
k
performance criteria.
2. Refractive Index Spectrum of Oceanic Turbulence where k  2π∕λ is the wave number at the wave-
length λ, L is the path length, ξ is the normalized
The spatial power spectrum of refractive index fluc-
path length, and D is the diameter of the circular
tuations in locally homogeneous and isotropic oce-
receive aperture.
anic turbulence at the stable stratification (where
After substituting Eq. (1) into Eq. (3) and expressing
the thermal diffusivity K T and the diffusion of the
the cosine function in Eq. (3) in terms of the exponen-
salt K S are equal to each other) is given by [15]
tial function with imaginary argument, we obtain
Φn
κ 
4π−1 C0 α2 ε−1∕3 κ−11∕3 1  C1
κη2∕3 
σ 2I;pl
D  2πC0 α2 χ T ω−2 ε−1∕3 k2 L
χ
× T2 ω2 e−AT δ  e−AS δ − 2ωe−ATS δ ; (1) ×
ω2 I 1;pl  I 2;pl − 2ωI 3;pl ; (5)
ω

1274 APPLIED OPTICS / Vol. 54, No. 6 / 20 February 2015

where For the spherical wave case, the substitution of
Z1 Z∞ Eq. (1) into Eq. (4) leads to
I i;pl  Re dξ dκκ −8∕3 exp
−ai κ4∕3 
0 0 σ 2I;sp
D  2πC0 α2 χ T ω−2 ε−1∕3 k2 L
    
D2 2 ×
ω2 I 1;sp  I 2;sp − 2ωI 3;sp ;
× exp − bi  κ (9)
16
    
D2 2 j16Lξ where
− exp − bi  κ 1
16 16kbi  kD2 Z1 Z∞
Z1 Z∞
 C1 η2∕3 Re dξ dκκ−2 exp
−ai κ4∕3  I i;sp  Re dξ dκκ −8∕3 exp
−ai κ4∕3 
0 0
  
0 0
      
D2 2 D2 ξ2 2
× exp − bi  κ × exp − bi  κ
16 16
       
D2 2 j16Lξ D2 ξ2 2
− exp − bi  κ 1 ; (6) − exp − bi  κ
16 16kbi  kD2 16
 
j16L
where ai  1.5Ai C21 η4∕3 ; bi  Ai C31 η2 ; i  1, 2, 3 de- × 1 ξ
1 − ξ
notes previously pmentioned subscripts T, S, and TS, kbi  kD2 ξ2
 Z1 Z∞
respectively; j  −1; and Re
x denotes the real part
 C1 η2∕3 Re dξ dκκ−2 exp
−ai κ4∕3 
of x. By expanding the function exp
−ai κ4∕3  in a Ma- 0 0
claurin series and performing the inside integral with     
D2 ξ2 2
respect to κ, we derive that × exp − bi  κ
16
 5−4n   
1X ∞
Γ
2n∕3 − 5∕6
−ai n D2 6 D2 ξ2 2
I i;pl  bi  − exp − bi  κ
2 n0 n! 16 16
Z 1  5−4n   
j16Lξ j16L
× Re 1− 1
6
dξ × 1 ξ
1 − ξ :
16kb  kD 2 kbi  kD2 ξ2
0 i
 3−4n
C η2∕3 X∞
Γ
2n∕3 − 1∕2
−ai n D2 6 Following a similar procedure as has been used in the
 1 bi 
2 n0 n! 16 plane wave case, we deduce that
Z 1  3−4n 
j16Lξ
1X
6 ∞
× Re 1− 1 2
dξ: (7) Γ
2n∕3 − 5∕6
−ai n
0 16kb i  kD I i;sp 
2 n0 n!
Then, by performing the integral over ξ, we obtain   
5 2n
− 2n 5 1 3 D2
 5 X   2n × b6i2 3 F 1 − ; ; ;−
L 6 ∞ Γ
2n∕3 − 5∕6
−ai n L − 3 3 6 2 2 16bi
I i;pl  3 Z 1 5−2n 
k n0
11 − 4nn! k D2 2 jL 6 3

   − Re bi  ξ  ξ
1 − ξ dξ
11 − 4n 16kbi  kD2 6
5−4n
0 16 k
×
6 16L C η2∕3 X ∞
Γ
2n∕3 − 1∕2
−ai n
 1
   11−4n 2 n0 n!
16kbi  kD2 2 12
− 1   
16L 1 2n
− 2n 1 1 3 D2
   × b2i2 3 F 1 − ; ; ;−
11 − 4n 16L 3 2 2 2 16bi
× sin tan−1 Z 1 1−2n 
6 16kbi  kD2 D2 2 jL 2 3
 1 X − Re bi  ξ  ξ
1 − ξ dξ ; (10)
L 2 ∞ Γ
2n∕3 − 1∕2
−ai n 0 16 k
 3C1 η2∕3
k n0
9 − 4nn!
 −2n   3−4n where 2 F 1 is the Gauss hypergeometric function.
L 3 9 − 4n 16kbi  kD2 6 The probability density function (PDF) of the ran-
× domly fading irradiance signal often used under
k 6 16L
  2
2 9−4n weak irradiance fluctuations is the lognormal model
16kbi  kD 12
as per Eq. (11.22) of [8]
− 1
16L  
   1 ln u  0.5σ 2I
D2
9 − 4n 16L pI
u  p exp − ;u > 0:
× sin tan −1
: (8) uσ I
D 2π 2σ 2I
D
6 16kbi  kD2
(11)

20 February 2015 / Vol. 54, No. 6 / APPLIED OPTICS 1275

The probability of fade describes the percentage of
time the irradiance of the received wave is below
some prescribed threshold value I T . Hence, the
probability of fade as a function of threshold
level is defined
R by the cumulative probability
Pr
I ≤ I T   0IT pI
udu. For the lognormal PDF
[Eq. (11)], the resulting probability of fade leads to
  
1 0.5σ 2I
D − 0.23F T
Pr
I ≤ I T   1  erf p ; (12)
2 2σ I
D

where erf
x is the error function; and the fade
parameter F T, given in dB, represents the decibel
(dB) level below the on-axis mean irradiance that
the threshold I T is set.
The mean SNR at the output of the detector in the
case of a shot-noise-limited systems assumes the
form as per Eq. (11.48) of [8]
SNR0
hSNRi  q ;
1  σ 2I
DSNR20
where SNR0 is the SNR in the absence of turbulence.
In the presence of optical turbulence, the probabil-
ity of error is considered a conditional probability
that must be averaged over the PDF of the random
signal to determine the unconditional mean BER. In
terms of a normalized signal with unit mean, this
leads to the expression as per Eq. (11.58) of [8]
Z  
1 ∞ hSNRiu
hBERi  pI
uerfc p du;
2 0 2 2
where pI
u is taken to be the lognormal distribution
[Eq. (11)] with unit mean. Equation (14) can be
efficiently computed by use of Gauss–Hermite quad-
rature rules [19].
4. Results and Discussion
Next we first show some numerical results of the
analytical irradiance flux variances over circular
apertures for the plane wave and spherical wave
cases. To perform the numerical calculations, we
set η  10−3 m, ε  10−5 m2 ∕s3 , and λ  0.417 μm
which is in the low-absorption and low-scattering
range of the ocean. We restrict the values of the irra-
diance flux variance smaller than unity, thus our
results are valid in the weak turbulence regime.
In Fig. 1 we show the irradiance flux variances of a
plane wave [Eq. (5)] and a spherical wave [Eq. (9)] as
a function of the path length and several values of
aperture diameters. In computing the infinite series
in Eqs. (8) and (11), we choose n to be 10 since the
series converges rapidly for typical values of the
involved parameters. D  0 corresponds to a point
receiver. The aperture-averaged receivers with
finite-size receive apertures (D  1 and 5 cm) are
compared to the point receiver as a benchmark. As
excepted, it is observed that the decrease in oceanic
turbulence-induced scintillation associated with
Fig. 1. Irradiance flux variances over circular apertures versus
path length and various aperture diameters. Assumed parameters
are χ T  10−5 K 2 ∕s and ω  −2.5.
increasing receiver collecting lens can take place
even for relatively small aperture. Specifically, for
the case of the plane wave, the irradiance flux vari-
ance at the point receiver increases beyond unity at
(13) the path length of 11 m, whereas at the same path
length, the irradiance flux variance associated with
the small aperture of 1 cm approaches zero. From
another point of view, we note that the increase in
receive apertures can extend the reliable communi-
cation distance of underwater optical communica-
tions systems. As observed, the irradiance flux
variances for D  0 reach unity at the path length
of 11 m for the plane wave case and 20 m for the
spherical wave case. This distance extends, respec-
tively, to 120 and 106 m for D  5 cm, which also in-
dicates that the aperture-averaging effects are more
(14) remarkable for plane waves than for spherical waves.
Figure 2 provides the irradiance flux variances
versus the aperture diameters for various rates of
dissipation of mean squared temperature χ T . For
optical waves in the blue–green spectral region,
the absorption and scattering coefficient in oceanic
medium are small enough to support a communica-
tion link up to a distance of 100 m [17]. So we set
L  100 m. From Fig. 2 we see that for different val-
ues of χ T , the irradiance flux variances first drop off
sharply with increasing values of aperture diame-
ters, and then gradually decrease, approaching zero
as the aperture diameters increase without bound.
If the irradiance flux variance is close to zero, the
Fig. 2. Irradiance flux variances versus aperture diameters and
various χ T . Assumed parameters are ω  −2.5 and L  100 m.

1276 APPLIED OPTICS / Vol. 54, No. 6 / 20 February 2015


Fig. 3. Irradiance flux variances versus aperture diameters and
various ω. Assumed parameters are χ T  10−6 K 2 ∕s and
L  100 m.
influence of oceanic turbulence on underwater opti-
cal communication systems can be ignored.
In Fig. 3 the curves for the irradiance flux varian-
ces associated with different temperature–salinity
balance parameter ω are plotted against aperture
diameters. L is also set to 100 m. Similarly to the re-
sults illustrated in Fig. 3, we see that the irradiance
flux variance decreases drastically first and then
moves toward zero with the increases of aperture
diameters. We also observe that the reduction in
temperature-induced scintillation requires much
smaller receive aperture than does the decrease of
salinity-induced scintillation. For example in the
spherical wave case, to achieve specific irradiance
flux variance of 0.4, the 2 cm aperture is large enough
for ω  −5, whereas the 5 cm aperture is required for
ω  −0.5. Besides, we note that at a fixed value of χ T ,
the differences between the curves of the aperture-
averaged irradiance flux variances corresponding
to ω  −5 and ω  −2.5 are not significant, but are
obvious between those of ω  −2.5 and ω  −0.1.
This suggests that at a specific depth of ocean, the
receive aperture should be carefully chosen espe-
cially for salinity-induced turbulence.
Figure 4 illustrates the probability of fade
[Eq. (13)] as the variation of the temperature–
salinity balance parameter ω. The irradiance flux
variances in Eq. (13) are obtained by setting D 
10 cm and L  100 m. The fade threshold parameter
F T  3 dB. We can see that the probability of fade
Fig. 4. Probability of fade versus ω for different χ T . Assumed
parameters are D  10 cm, L  100 m, and F T  3 dB.
increases with the value of ω increases. This is
because salinity-driven turbulence induces more sig-
nificant scintillation than temperature-driven turbu-
lence. Also, large χ T leads to increased probability of
fade over that caused by small χ T . We note that for a
large receive aperture of 10 cm, the probability of
fade corresponding to spherical waves is higher than
that of plane waves. This is a consequence of the
behavior in the associated irradiance flux variances
as a function of aperture diameters. For a pointer
receiver, the scintillation of plane waves is larger
than the scintillation of spherical waves, but the
situation is opposite when the receiver aperture is
large enough. This is consistent with the observation
presented in atmospheric turbulence [10].
In Fig. 5 we plot the mean SNR [Eq. (14)] in dB as a
function of ω for various χ T . SNR0  10 dB. We note
that there is a penalty on the mean SNR with respect
to SNR0 . Such a penalty becomes large with the
increasing values of ω and χ T . Under the same oce-
anic conditions, the spherical wave suffers the more
serious penalty in SNR as compared to the plane
wave. The reason for this phenomenon is due to
the behavior of irradiance flux variances over large
apertures reported previously.
Numerical calculation of the mean BER [Eq. (14)]
against the mean SNR for various aperture diame-
ters and path lengths leads to the results shown in
Fig. 6. These results show that to achieve an accept-
able level of mean BER (typically around 10−6 ) at a
communication distance of hundreds of meters in the
Fig. 5. Mean SNR versus ω for different χ T . Assumed parameters
are D  10 cm, L  100 m, and SNR0  10 dB.
Fig. 6. Mean BER for on–off keying direct detection as a function
of mean SNR and various D and L. χ T  10−6 K 2 ∕s and ω  −2.5.
20 February 2015 / Vol. 54, No. 6 / APPLIED OPTICS 1277
presence of oceanic turbulence, it will be necessary to
utilize a large-aperture collecting lens.
5. Conclusion
In summary, we have studied the aperture-averaged
scintillations of plane and spherical waves that hori-
zontally propagate through weak oceanic turbulence.
By use of the ABCD matrix method, the exact ana-
lytic solutions to the irradiance flux variances over
a circular aperture are obtained after a rigorous
mathematical derivation. With the newly developed
expressions, the reduction in oceanic-induced scintil-
lation as the result of aperture averaging and the
corresponding improvements in the associated
probability of fade, mean SNR, and mean BER are
analyzed in depth for different values of the path
length, the rate of dissipation of the mean squared
temperature, and the temperature–salinity balance
parameter. It has been shown that aperture-
averaging effects in a turbulent ocean environment
are significant even for relatively small receive aper-
tures. For large-aperture receivers, a plane wave is
preferred with respect to a spherical wave. The
adoption of the aperture-averaging technique in an
underwater optical communication system can
observably extend its reliable communication dis-
tance. The observations presented in this paper
can be helpful in the design of underwater optical
communication systems.
This work was supported by the New Teacher
Innovation Fund of Xidian University (Grant
No. K5051399067).
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