European Journal of Scientific Research

ISSN 1450-216X Vol. 87 No 3 October, 2012, pp.349-358

© EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012
http://www.europeanjournalofscientificresearch.com

Analysis of Underwater Environment and Establishment of

Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Link

A. Sangeetha
Asst.Professor (Senior Grade), Photonics and Microwave Division
School of Electronics Engineering, VIT University
Vellore-14, Tamil Nadu, India
E-mail: asangeetha@vit.ac.in or sangeeth30@yahoo.co.in

Midhun P. Abraham
B.Tech Electronics and Communication, 2008-2012 Batch
School of Electronics Engineering
VIT University, Vellore-14, Tamil Nadu, India
E-mail: mailmhnc@gmail.com

Nevil Bruno
B.Tech Electronics and Communication, 2008-2012 Batch
School of Electronics Engineering, VIT University
Vellore-14, Tamil Nadu, India
E-mail: nevil.bruno@gmail.com

Abstract

A major challenge facing ocean exploration and surveillance is how to quickly and
accurately communicate the data obtained by the sensors or unmanned system to a surface
ship or shore-based station. The primary reason for this challenge is that radio frequency
waves do not propagate well underwater. And acoustic waves don’t provide sufficient
bandwidth [1, 2]. Optical communication systems are mostly preferred for terrestrial and
underwater for their high bandwidth, feasibility and reliability. The main focus of this
paper is to improve the communication underwater which includes the effects of scattering,
dispersion and absorption. In this paper, an underwater wireless optical communication
technique is proposed for short range applications using high luminance Superflux LEDs,
Laser and Phototransistor. The system performance is modelled in MATLAB and
OPTISYSTEM based on underwater optics. The divergence characteristic of LED is
reduced with the help of Lensing schemes. The circuits are designed by understanding the
limitations of underwater optical communication and are tested in different water types.
After the analysis, IC MAX232 chips are used in the system to establish a PC-to-PC
communication through RS232 DB-9 serial link. MAX 232 chip is used to convert RS 232
logic to TTL logic and vice versa. HyperTerminal software is used for communication with
port parameters: 9600 baud rate, no parity, and 8 bits per character with a stop bit.

Keywords: Optical communication, bandwidth, DB-9, scattering, dispersion, absorption,

Superflux LED, Laser, Phototransistor, MAX232, RS232, TTL Logic, baud
rate.
Analysis of Underwater Environment and Establishment of
Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Link 350

1. Introduction
Nowadays, acoustic technology is mostly used for establishing wireless communication link among
divers and ships, or sending long range remote signals. This is because sound waves travel through
water faster than in air, receiving very little attenuation. However, due to frequency attenuation
characteristic of acoustic waves in water, it is difficult to expand its bandwidth. Therefore, acoustic
approach cannot achieve high data rate, and also portable communication devices are difficult to be
designed at a low cost [2]. Although radio frequencies have enjoyed large success in free space, they
experience high attenuation in water and typically not used for underwater communication. This brings
a "bottleneck" problem for a large amount of data collection (such as multi-sensor data, image
information, etc.). Wireless optical communication have shown promise of supporting large
bandwidths, high data transfer rate, small in size, low power consumption, immune to electromagnetic
interference. Thus, underwater wireless optical communication can be an alternative way to share large
amounts of data quickly for underwater data transmission [3].
At present, there is demand for high quality, high speed communication links for short
distances within few meters. For example, high quality voice communication between divers, data
transmission of video streaming and sensing data. Also, it is known that light in the visible region has
the least attenuation in water [2]. Other major applications of short distance underwater optical links
include: networks of sensors for the investigation of climate change; monitoring biological,
biogeochemical, evolutionary, and ecological processes in sea, ocean, and lake environments; and
unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) used to control and maintain oil production facilities and
harbors [4]. The distance between the transmitter and the receiver must be short, due to the extremely
challenging underwater environment, which is characterized by high multi-scattering and absorption.
Multi-scattering causes the optical pulse to widen in the spatial, temporal, angular, and polarization
domains.
The purpose of this paper is to understand the underwater optical channel and its effects on the
communication link then a Line-of-Sight (LOS) system is proposed to adapt to several transmission
problems underwater. An experimental investigation is conducted to compare the analyzed results with
practical cases, in different types of water (Treated water, Salt water and Lake water). After the
analysis, the system is used to establish a PC-to-PC underwater optical communication link. Note that
this paper is not intended in accurately modeling the underwater optical channel, but focusing on
bonding the two areas; opto-electronics and underwater optics.

2. Free Space Optics (FSO) Concepts in Water

Water has widely varying optical properties depending on location, time of day, organic and inorganic
content, as well as temporal variations such as turbulence. To construct an optical link it is important to
understand these properties. The loss of optical energy while traversing the link arises from both
absorption and scattering. Scattering also adversely impacts the link by introducing multipath
dispersion.
Attenuation underwater is the loss of beam intensity due to intrinsic absorption by water,
dissolved impurities, organic matter and scattering from the water, and impurities including organic
and inorganic particulate [5, 6]. Scattering can be thought of as the redirection of incident photons into
new directions so it prevents the forward on-axis transmission of photons, thereby casting a shadow.
So a beam will “spread” in diameter or loose light intensity. Considering pure seawater, it is composed
of primarily H20, which absorbs heavily towards the red spectrum. It also has dissolved salts that
absorb light at specific wavelengths [7]. It is seen that, pure seawater is absorptive except around a
400nm-500nm window, the blue-green region of the visible light spectrum [7]. The majority of the
attenuation is due to mechanisms such as absorption by chlorophylls and humic acids, and scattering
from particulate and salts dissolved in the water. Although scattering plays a significant role in the
lower wavelengths, it is found that absorption dominates. For example, in pure seawater attenuation is
351 A. Sangeetha, Midhun P. Abraham and Nevil Bruno

initially dominated by absorption, closer to land where river runoff introduce particulate and organic
matter, scattering dominates. Therefore, with worsening water conditions, blue ~450 nm to green ~ 550
nm window is appropriate for data transmission. Also the performance tends to be higher for a laser
based system. A cheaper and efficient LED based solution is sufficient to tackle the attenuation in short
ranges. Other issues such as the field of view and dynamic range of the receiver should also be
considered.

3. The Properties of Underwater Optical Wireless Communication Channel

Light pulses propagating in aquatic medium suffer from attenuation and broadening in the spatial,
angular, temporal, and polarization domains. The attenuation and broadening are wavelength
dependent and result from absorption and multi-scattering of light by water molecules and by marine
hydrosols (mineral and organic matter). The extinction coefficient c(λ) of the aquatic medium is
governed by the absorption and scattering coefficients α(λ) and β(λ), respectively [4];
c ( λ ) = α (λ ) + β (λ ) (1)
Increase in the turbidity dramatically increases the extinction coefficient [4].
The propagation loss factor as a function of wavelength and distance z is given by [4]:
L pr (λ , z ) = exp[−c(λ ) z ] (2)
The most common link between two points in optical wireless communication systems is a line-
of-sight (LOS) link as illustrated in Fig. 1

Figure 1: The line-of-sight communication scenario.

In this scenario, the transmitter directs the light beam in the direction of the receiver. The
optical signal reaching the receiver is obtained by multiplying the transmitter power, telescope gain,
and losses and is given by [4]:
d Arec cos θ
PR _ los = PTηTη R L pr (λ , ) (3)
cos θ 2π d 2 (1 − cos θ 0 )
where PT is the average transmitter optical power, ηT is the optical efficiency of the transmitter, ηR is
the optical efficiency of the receiver, d is the perpendicular distance between the transmitter and the
receiver plane, θ is the angle between the perpendicular to the receiver plane and the transmitter-
receiver trajectory, ARec is the receiver aperture area, and θ0 is the laser beam divergence angle. When
the transmitter beam divergence angle is very narrow (θ0 << π/20) Eq. (3) can be approximated as [4]:
d A cos θ
PR _ los = PTηTη R Lpr (λ , ) rec (4)
cos θ π (d tan θ0 ) 2
Analysis of Underwater Environment and Establishment of
Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Link 352

By using the parameters in Table.1 the loss at receiver end in the LOS scenario is calculated
using MATLAB. The results have been shown in the Table. 2. The same parameters are used in
OPTISYSTEM. In OPTISYSTEM, spatial optical transmitter, spatial optical receiver, and FSO
channel with required losses were utilized to simulate the link. The output of the receiver is analyzed
using RF spectrum analyzer, Oscilloscope visualizer, Eye diagram analyzer and BER calculator. The
results have been shown in the Table. 3.

Table 1: Parameters used in the simulation

Parameter Value
Extinction coefficient for:
Clean ocean 0.15
Coastal ocean 0.3
Turbid harbor 2.19
Operational wavelength:
Blue 470nm
Green 525nm
Red 650nm
Optical efficiency for :
Transmitter 0.9
Receiver 0.9
Transmitter power 2W
Θ 30degrees
Beam divergence angle (θ0) 68degrees
Receiver width 100µm
Range 0.1m, 10m, 20m, 30m, 40m
Spatial optical transmitter:
Power 2W
Wavelength 470nm(Blue), 525nm(Green) and 650nm(Red)
Modulation NRZ
Spatial optical Receiver:
Photodetector With Shot noise and Thermal noise
Responsivity 1 A/W
Dark current 10nA

Table 2: Power received (dB) for different values of Extinction coefficient c(λ)

Extinction coefficient Prop. Loss Factor, Distance (m)

c(λ). Lpr (dBm) 0.1 10 20 30 40
0.153 (Clean ocean) 30.91 2.441 -45.0706 -58.6786 -69.7878 -79.8739
0.3 (Coastal ocean) 30.83 2.3664 -52.5276 -73.5926 -92.1588 -109.702
2.19 (Turbid harbor) 30.268 1.4186 -147.304 -263.152 -376.498 -488.821

Table 3: Results of OPTISYSTEM simulation

Distance (m)
Findings
0.1 10 20 30 40
Max. Q-Factor 2238.7 1848.69 687.9 99.9 9.27
Eye Height 0.439 0.0372 0.0031 0.00025 1.5 e-5
Decision instant 0.5156 0.5156 0.5156 0.5156 0.625
Threshold 0.091 0.0077 0.00066 8.5 e-5 1.3 e-5

As distance increases the transmission channel is impacted with the attenuation properties of
the water medium. The effects of wavelengths in the link are not easy to observe because accurate
model of the channel (Water medium) is difficult to simulate. But, practically, the wavelength
constrains are noticed during the experimentation of the link.
353 A. Sangeetha, Midhun P. Abraham and Nevil Bruno

From Table.2, at distance d=20m, the loss value is more in Turbid harbor water than the other
two water types. Hence the turbid harbor water creates a bad impact on the data rate than the other
water types. From Table.3, Q-factor i.e. the figure of merit that represents the ratio of stored to
dissipated energy per cycle reduces as the propagating distance increases. As a result, the Bit Error
Rate (BER) also increases. Distances above 20m, the Eye diagram gets more distorted which results in
high Inter-symbol interference (ISI). Distortion of the received signal is noticed in the Oscilloscope
visualizer. And at very high frequencies/data rate, the signal power gets attenuated which is seen from
the RF Spectrum analyzer. Frequency attenuation characteristic is seen here at very high frequencies
but it is much better than acoustic wave propagation, hence higher bandwidth can be achieved with
higher data rate compared to the acoustic approach. Therefore, high quality, high speed under water
communication links for short distances within few meters can be established with less signal
distortion. Of course, there are hardware constraints that must be considered.

4. System Design and Experimentation

The crucial components of an optical communication link are the light source and detector. Additional
circuitry such as drivers and signal shaping circuits are based on the performance of light source and
the detector.

4.1. Transmitter Design

The duty of the transmitter is to modulate the input signal and produce enough drive current to drive
the LED. The LED will convert the electrical signal into optical pulses which will be transmitted
through the water channel. The optical modulation is used to modulate a beam of light, converting the
electrical signal array into the light array and including information into the signal. Direct modulation
is opted here to avoid complexities when the circuit is modified for PC-to-PC link.

Figure 2: Transmitter circuit.

The first part of the circuit is an IC-7414 Hex-Schmitt trigger (Fig. 2). Schmitt trigger is used
for pulse-shaping to give clean, jitter free signal to the LED driver from a RS-232 to TTL converter
(IC-MAX232) which is used to establish the PC-to-PC link. For the initial analysis, a function
generator is used to generate square-wave signals.
Analysis of Underwater Environment and Establishment of
Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Link 354

The second part of the circuit is an IC- 7405 Hex inverter which is used as the light source
driver. Each NOT gate of IC- 7405 supplies 5mA; so six not gates are used to provide the drive current
of 30mA. The light sources selected for the link were LumiLEDs of wavelengths 470nm(Blue) and
525nm(Green) and a 650nm (Red) Class 3B laser diode.

4.2. Receiver Design

The duty of the receiver is to receive the light information from the channel, process the signal and
retain the transmitted information. A phototransistor will convert the received light signal into current
signal.

Figure 3: Receiver circuit.

L14G2 phototransistor is used here. The phototransistor connected to a trans-impedance

amplifier forms the first component of the receiver. An operational amplifier (op-amps) is used here to
design the trans-impedance amplifier. When a feedback resistor is connected across the output to the
negative input the gain is so high that all of the current must go through the feedback resistor. So, the
output will be VOUT = -(IIN × RF). This setup is called as current-to-voltage converter, also known as
transimpedance amplifier, where the gain or transimpedance is equal to RF [8].
The second component is a simple op-amp inverting voltage amplifier. This changes the signal
from a negative voltage to a positive voltage and amplifies it so that even very small signals can be
received. It has a Gain of –R2/R1. The amplifier Gain is configured to two (R2= 2kΩ, R1= 1kΩ). Only
when negative feedback is applied to the op-amp it acts as a linear amplifier [8].
The third component is a comparator. It converts the amplified signal into TTL voltage levels
(0V and +5V). A comparator takes in two signals, compares them and tells which signal is higher. In
other words, the op-amp comparator will always saturate either at its positive or negative supply
voltage. Its output will change its state when Vin changes its sign [8]. The output of the comparator is
given to a CRO.
The suitable op-amps used were CA3130 (Trans-impedance amplifier and Comparator) and
CA3140 (Inverting voltage amplifier).

4.3. Analysis
Experimentation of the link is done using a water tank (length= ~2feet and width= ~1feet) as the water
medium. Analysis is performed with three different types of water: Treated water, Salt water and Lake
water. Since, single LEDs do not approximate to a point source of light giving a spherical light
distribution, but rather a lambertian distribution; an Objective Lens of focal length 30mm (5X/0.10) is
used at the transmitter to converge the LED light rays. Where by the beam divergence of LED can be
reduced and can be well focused at the detector other end. The results of analysis is shown in Table. 4.
355 A. Sangeetha, Midhun P. Abraham and Nevil Bruno

Table 4: Results of link analysis (Transmitted 5V signal)

Treated water Salt Water Lake water*

Freq.
Green Blue LED Red Laser Green Red Laser Green Blue LED Red
(Hz)
LED (V) (V) (V) LED (V) (V) LED (V) (V) Laser (V)
500 4.8 4.6 4.8 5 4.6 5 4.8 5
1K 4.8 4.6 4.8 5 4.8 5 5 -
10K 4.9 5 4.8 5 4.8 5 5 -
50K 5 5 5 5 4.8 5 5 -
500K 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 -
700K 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 -
1M 5 5 5 - 5 5 5 -
2M 5 4.6 5 - 4.8 5 5 -
3.5M 5 - 5 - 4.8 5 - -
4.5M - - 5 - - 5 - -
5M - - 5 - - 5 - -
6M - - 5 - - - - -
*signal detection is not possible lengthwise of the tank due to high turbidity of Lake water. So, the readings were taken
widthwise.

In Salt water analysis, Red Laser light got more affected to the attenuation properties of water.
Blue LED light beam is severely affected with the turbidity and it was impossible to capture the signal.
Lake water analysis is difficult due to the suspended particles and high turbidity. Detection of the
signal from any of the three sources, length wise (~2 feet) of the water tank wasn’t possible. But, it was
able to detect the signal width wise of the tank (~ 1 foot). The light sources got diminished
progressively corresponding to the high frequencies above 2.5MHz and there were transmitter-receiver
alignment issues. So generally, the performance of the system is best when Green LED is used as the
light source. Red Laser diode also performs better. The performance Blue LED is not satisfactory.

Figure: 4: Sample photos of the analysis. (a)Green LED in Treated water (b) Red Laser in Salt water (c)Blue
LED in Lake water.

The propagation loss factor between the transmitter and receiver is ~21dBm. Compared to the
theoretical propagation loss analysis, there is a difference of ~9dBm. This is due to power loss during
the transmission: the light path is hindered from the air medium, water tank glass twice (at transmitter
end and receiver end), water medium and the lens medium, the aperture area of the phototransistor is
small to accommodate the received light rays. These issues can be resolved by submerging the systems
in water and by using a phototransistor with large aperture area.

4.4. PC-to-PC link Design

After the analysis using the basic transmitter and receiver (Fig. 2 and 3), IC-MAZ232 chips was used
to establish data communication between two computers via under water free space optical link. The
RS232 DB-9 serial ports of the computers are used and are operated by HyperTerminal communication
program in Windows XP.
Analysis of Underwater Environment and Establishment of
Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Link 356

Figure 5: Underwater wireless optical PC-to-PC link.

Figure 6: Transmitter circuit for PC-to-PC link.

The transmitter circuit of Fig. 2 is modified by placing IC-MAX232 before IC-7405 and IC-
7414 (Fig. 6). The MAX232 generates +10V and -10V voltage swings using a dual charge pump
voltage converter from a single +5VDC rail. Several different versions of the MAX232 chip exist. The
A version requires only 0.1uF capacitors for the charge-pump and inverter, whereas the MAX232
requires 1uF capacitors. The advantage of the A version is that it has faster response times, and allows
for faster data rates. MAX232 IC provides the interface to the PC through RS-232 DB-9 serial cable,
and IC- 7414 shapes the signal and provides clean, jitter free input to the IC- 7405: the light source
driver.

Figure 7: Receiver circuit for PC-to-PC link.

357 A. Sangeetha, Midhun P. Abraham and Nevil Bruno

In the receiver circuit (Fig. 7), the output of the comparator op-amp is connected to IC-
MAX232. The MAX232 converts the TTL signal into RS232 signal. The data is then sent to the
receiver PC via a RS232 DB-9 serial cable.

Figure 8: Connection Diagram of DB-9 (female) Connector.

The PC DB-9 serial port (Fig. 8) contains several data and handshake lines. Only the Transmit
Data (TD), Receive Data (RD) and common ground (GND) lines are used here. In order to make the
serial port active, the Data Terminal Ready (DTR) line is connected to the Data Set Ready (DSR) and
Data Carrier Detect (DCD) lines. The Request To Send (RTS) line is connected to the Clear To Send
(CTS) line. This has the effect of tricking the serial port into thinking that it is always ready to receive
and send data. These links are soldered inside the connector itself. For the transmitter, TD (pin 3) and
GND (pin 5) lines are wired. For the receiver, RD (pin 2) and GND (pin 5) lines are wired.
The HyperTerminal program is used to send and receive texts. Even though there were Line-of-
sight alignment issues, we accurately received the transmitted text. Windows HyperTerminal is used to
open COM1 at N-8-1 9600bps where, N means no parity, 8 means the number of bits a word should
contain, 1 defines stop word, 9600 represents the data rate of the data, with no flow control. Since,
green LED rendered good performance we used it at the transmitter. And the water tank was filled with
particulate to see the performance of the link in non-clear water. As data is typed on the transmitter PC
keyboard, the LED got little spurts of power and blinked on and off at lower baud rates such as 110.
The receiver is connected to the CRO to view the detected signal. When the signal is received, we were
able to see +6V to -6V on the scope. If the transmitter-receiver link is misaligned, the receiver PC
shows false characters being received as we type from the transmitter PC. After properly aligning the
link, the receiver PC is able to detect all the characters on the keyboard at the default PC baud rate of
9600.

5. Conclusion
The underwater wireless optical link designed is capable to communicate for short distances for few
meters at MHz range. This system is preferred for underwater wireless application apart from existing
high frequency radio wave system which is highly absorbed in water, and acoustic communication
systems which has relatively low bandwidth. Theoretical analysis of the link is done by simulating
parameters involved in attenuation of light in water, such as absorption and scattering. The broader
details involved in propagation of information underwater such as the Quality factor, Eye diagram and
RF spectrum were also observed. Light sources were selected which had wavelengths within 400nm-
500nm window. Lensing was used to confine the LED beam whereby reducing the scattering to some
extent. Compared to the theoretical analysis, a moderate difference in practical propagation loss factor
was observed. It was due to the power losses occurred during the transmission. But, these issues can be
resolved by submerging the systems in water and by using a phototransistor with large aperture area.
The performance of Green LED was the best followed by Red Laser and Blue LED. The PC-to-PC
communication link via the designed underwater wireless optical link was established at the baud rate
Analysis of Underwater Environment and Establishment of
Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Link 358

of 9600. Even though there were alignment issues at higher frequencies/data rate, the signals were
efficiently received.

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