Average BER of Maritime Visible Light Communication System in Atmospheric Turbulent Channel

The atmospheric turbulence makes signal intensity fluctuation randomly and reduce performance of Visible light communication (VLC) system in maritime environment. To establish an effective VLC network in the actual marine environment, an effective channel transmission model needs to be established and used to study the performance of the maritime VLC link. Based on the Pierson-Moskowitz spectrum, the geometric model of links between lighthouse and ship is established. Considering the aperture averaging effect, Lognormal distribution is employed to deduce the mathematical expression of average bit error rate (BER). The effects of sea wave height, transmission distance, atmospheric turbulence intensity, receiver aperture size and wavelength on the average BER is analyzed. The work presented here is devoted to propose a new model for the evaluation of maritime VLC system performance and providing reference for practical application.