Monte Carlo study on pulse response of underwater optical channel

Pulse response of the underwater wireless optical channel is significant for the analysis of channel capacity and error probability. Traditional vector radiative transfer theory (VRT) is not able to deal with the effect of receiving aperture. On the other hand, general water tank experiments cannot acquire an accurate pulse response due to the limited time resolution of the photo-electronic detector. We present a Monte Carlo simulation model to extract the time-domain pulse response undersea. In comparison with the VRT model, a more accurate pulse response for practical ocean communications could be achieved through statistical analysis of the received photons. The proposed model is more reasonable for the study of the underwater optical channel. (c) 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). [DOI: 10.1117/1.OE.51.6.066001]