A Low-Complexity Approach to UV Communication Channel Model Evaluation

Ultraviolet (UV) communications has been extensively studied as a promising technology to overcome challenging communication environments that may include, e.g., lack of line-of-sight and radio-frequency denial. In particular, atmospheric scattering at UV wavelengths can provide for a unique non-line-of-sight optical communication channel, and much research has focused on modeling this channel. However, the computational complexity of the highest-fidelity models, which are based on Monte Carlo simulation, has limited their usefulness. Here, we propose a low-complexity method for model evaluation that is based on precomputation and interpolation. We illustrate this approach in the context of the optimization of networks of UV communications systems. The results demonstrate the utility of our proposed method, show the importance of applying rigorous channel modeling when configuring UV communication systems, and suggest that our approach may be of great use beyond the particular application studied here.