Amplitude Determined Pulse Counting Based Wide Dynamic Range Signal Detection for UOWC with PMT Detector

Photomultiplier tube (PMT) is typically employed for weak signal detection in underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) systems, which aims to further extending transmission distance. However, the intrinsic operating characteristics of PMTs are generally influenced by incident optical power. This work presents a novel signal detection structure, which consists an amplitude determined pulse counting (ADPC) method and an adaptive threshold updating process, to significantly reduce the implementation complexity and cost. The feasibility of the proposed method is experimentally verified across various PMT operating regimes, and its robustness in different conditions is discussed. Experimental results show that the proposed method effectively facilitates signal detection for a wide dynamic range of incident optical Power.