Investigation of photodetector responsivity on the performance of underwater optical wireless communication systems

In this paper, we investigate the photodetector responsivity, on the performance of underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) systems. We examine its impact on the communication link performance in terms of bit-error-rate (BER) and Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This experiment is conducted for different types of photodiodes, to highlight the practical limitations of UWOC links in the presence of variable photodetector responsivity. We show how the photodiode responsivity can impact the performance of UWOC links for relatively less input power. The results provide valuable insight into the design of underwater optical wireless communication links, which are likely to be established at relatively less input power. They can be exploited not only for practical underwater optical wireless communication system deployment but also for the in-pool experimental set-ups since they elucidate the effect of photodiode responsivity on the measurements.