On Limitations of Using Silicon Photo-Multipliers for Underwater Wireless Optical Communications

International audienceThis paper considers the use of Silicon photo-multipliers in underwater wireless optical communication systems. We study the limitations arising from the limited band-width of these components as well as the solar background noise in relatively shallow waters. In particular, we show the interest of frequency-domain equalization in increasing the link data rate using on-off-keying and pulse-position modulation. Also, for a worst-case scenario, we determine the operation depth (with respect to the receiver) beyond which the link performance is not affected by the solar noise