Underwater fiber-wireless communication with a passive front end

作者：Xu, Jing^*; Sun, Bin; Lyu, Weichao; Kong, Meiwei; Sarwar, Rohail; Han, Jun; Zhang, Wei; Deng, Ning

来源：Optics Communications, 2017, 402: 260-264.

DOI：10.1016/j.optcom.2017.05.077

• Underwater fiber wireless communication
• POF
• UWOC
• OFDM

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel concept on underwater fiber wireless (Fi-Wi) communication system with a fully passive wireless front end. A low-cost step-index (SI) plastic optical fiber (POF) together with a passive collimating lens at the front end composes the underwater Fi-Wi architecture. We have achieved a 1.71-Gb/s transmission at a mean BER of 4.97 x 10(-3) (1.30 x 10(-3) when using power loading) over a 50-m SI-POF and 2-m underwater wireless channel using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). Although the wireless part is very short, it actually plays a crucial role in practical underwater implementation, especially in deep sea. Compared with the wired solution (e.g. using a 52-m POF cable without the UWOC part), the proposed underwater Fi-Wi scheme can save optical wet-mate connectors that are sophisticated, very expensive and difficult to install in deep ocean. By combining high-capacity robust POF with the mobility and ubiquity of underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC), the proposed underwater Fi-Wi technology will find wide application in ocean exploration.

• 出版日期2017-11-1
• 单位浙江大学