An experimental study of underwater visible light communication

Abstract

Visible light communication (VLC) has emerged as a powerful high-data-rate alternative to conventional underwater acoustic technology for short and medium link distances. In this paper, we develop an experimental underwater VLC platform and present some initial performance results. Our set-up uses prerecorded voltage levels fed in the arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) at the transmitter side while an oscilloscope is used to measure the received electrical signal after photodetection. To speed up debugging and troubleshooting, both transmitter and receiver sides are connected to a controller PC. The test instruments are controlled via Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments (SCPI) commands executed by this controller computer with a Python code. Using this set-up, we demonstrate the successful transmission of 8-PAM symbols over an 8-meter-long underwater tank.