Leveraging on the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) application for enabling high data rates and ensuring reliable communication between underwater platforms connected to underwater sensor network, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the performance of optical wireless MIMO communication systems depending on the various phenomena. The outage performance of an underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) is obtained in analytical form using Meijer-G function. Aysmptotic expression of outage probability is also derived for high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. Results show that the destructive combined effect of the underwater turbulence, pointing error, attenuation and angle-of-arrival (AOA) on the outage performance can be reduced by applying the MIMO spatial diversity technique.

On-axis slant path uplink transmittance (used in short as transmittance throughout the text) for multi Gaussian optical beam in Kolmogorov atmospheric turbulent medium is investigated. It is observed that for both the flat-topped and the annular beams, as the propagation distance, wind speed and the zenith angle increase, the transmittance decreases. The transmittance of flat-topped beams increases when the number of beams, source size or the wavelength increases. For the annular beam, when the outer/inner beam size ratio is kept constant, larger source sizes yield larger transmittance values. Transmittance of the thicker annular beams is found to be larger than the transmittance of the thinner annular beams.

Employing the Rytov solution, the scintillation index at the origin of the receiver plane is evaluated in non-Kolmogorov weak atmospheric turbulence when multimode laser incidence is used. The solution presented can be used when the multimode is composed of even modes. The novelty of this work lies in the theoretical combination of multimode laser beam excitation and non-Kolmogorov turbulence in the scintillation evaluations, which is not known both theoretically and experimentally. The study involves mathematical rigor but no experimental results. Being valid for any power law exponent of the non-Kolmogorov turbulence, the scintillations of the multimode beams are found to be smaller than the scintillation index of a single Gaussian beam. For the multimode laser beam excitation, the scintillation index is smaller at smaller power law exponent values. If the multimode content is formed by beams with larger mode numbers, the scintillations decrease for any non-Kolmogorov realization. When large sized beams are used in the multimode, the scintillations increase as compared to small sized content, and the scintillations become almost the same as the Gaussian beam scintillations. Comparing the multimode structures that have the same number of beams, the ones with higher order modes yield smaller scintillations, and for such multimode structures, very similar scintillation index behaviour versus the power law exponent can be obtained by varying the amplitudes of the modes composing the multimode. The main contribution of this paper is the formulation and evaluation of the scintillation noise in order to understand whether the use of multimode laser excitation will improve the link performance of optical wireless communication systems operating in a non-Kolmogorov atmosphere.

On-axis intensity fluctuations of laser array beams are evaluated when they are used in a weakly turbulent non-Kolmogorov atmosphere. Our formulation of the scintillation index is based on the Rytov method, which in the limiting case, correctly reduces to the known Gaussian beam scintillation index in weak Kolmogorov turbulence. When the radius of the ring (on which the array beamlets are placed), number of beamlets forming the laser array, source size of the beamlets, propagation distance or the wavelength is fixed, a decrease in the power law exponent of the non-Kolmogorov spectrum is found to decrease the scintillation index. Examining for any realization of the non-Kolmogorov spectrum, it is observed that an increase in the ring radius, number of beamlets, wavelength, and decrease in the source size of the beamlet, propagation distance reduces the intensity fluctuations.