UOWC performance based on GMSK modulation

Abstract This paper studies and investigates the performance of Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK) for underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC). Various scatterings may result in inter-symbol interference (ISI) and degrade system error performance in UWOC links. Bit-error rate (BER) is evaluated using different water environment models such as clear seawater, coastal, and harbor for a 20 m link range. Simulation results indicate the BER performance is degraded due to the temporal dispersion of impulse response for high data rates in turbid water. In addition, the bandwidth-symbol time product (BT) is an essential parameter in GMSK, affecting BER performance and power efficiency. Therefore, BT must be chosen with a value that balances BER and power efficiency. The results show that GMSK with BT = 0.5 is a good choice that satisfies BER = 10 −5 for SNR = 10 dB with an efficient power spectrum due to constant envelope and low out-of-band radiation.