Performance Analysis of PS-Enabled SLIPT in an Underwater-RF Communication Network

This paper investigates the performance of an underwater wireless optical communication-radio frequency (UWOC-RF) composite link network comprising of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), an energy-constrained communication buoy (CB), and an onshore data center (ODC). Data transmission from AUV to ODC is assisted by the energy harvesting (EH) CB, which utilizes the principle of simultaneous lightwave information and power transfer (SLIPT) and apportions the received signal power for EH as well as information decoding (ID) based on the power-splitting (PS) protocol. CB forwards the decoded information to ODC via an RF link using the harvested energy. Expressions are derived for the end-to-end outage probability and throughput in closed form. Further, it is demonstrated that the optimal choice of the PS parameter can minimize the outage probability for a fixed target rate, while to maximize the throughput, an optimal joint choice of target data rate and PS parameter is essential. We demonstrate that the optimal choice of the PS parameter allows the AUV to be distant from the CB. Accuracy of the derived analytical expressions is verified using Monte Carlo simulations for different water types.