Underwater Localization using Airborne Visible Light Communication Links

Localization of underwater networks has received lots of attention. However, existing scheme focuses on establishing a relative topology where a node's position is defined in relation to one another. Provisioning global coordinates is achieved only through the inclusion of a surface node that can serve as a reference. This paper opts to tackle the global localization problem in setting where surface nodes cannot be deployed or should be avoided. Our approach is to establish visible light communication (VLC) links across the air-water interface. An airborne unit is to transmit its GPS position using VLC. Upon receiving such a message, the underwater node will factor in the light intensity and coverage to determine its own position relative to the airborne node and consequently its own GPS coordinates. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and high positioning accuracy.