On capacity of underwater optical wireless links under weak oceanic turbulence

With recent advances and interests in underwater wireless optical communications (UWOC), a proper understanding of optical propagation in underwater environment is more essential. In this paper, we study the channel model taking absorption, scattering and turbulence into account. Then we consider average (ergodic) channel capacity of UWOC links under weak turbulence. The fading coefficient of weak oceanic turbulence is assumed to follow a pseudo-log-normal distribution. We adopt Monte Carlo method to evaluate the relationship between the average channel capacity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Numerical results have shown that channel capacity decreases as link range increases and the capacity will be significantly degraded in turbulence for relatively larger scintillation index.