Experimental study of turbulence effect on underwater light transmission performance

Abstract As a universal flow state, turbulence has an important effect on the performance of underwater optical transmission systems. Due to the influence of different parameters and the uncertainty of the turbulence direction, laser transmission in turbulent flow has special characteristics. In this paper, we design experiments to study the multi-parameter characteristics of laser transmission in different turbulence generated by changes in temperature and salinity. Meanwhile, we carry out experiments in circular flume to study the multi-directional characteristics of laser transmission in turbulence generated by rotating the propeller. The results show that the probability density distribution of the received light intensity is lognormal when the laser is transmitted in turbulence caused by temperature and salinity changes, and the stronger the turbulence intensity, the greater the influence on the received light intensity. In addition, when the laser is transmitted in propeller caused turbulence in different directions, it is found that the probability density curve agrees well with t location-scale distribution, and the scintillation index of the received light intensity keeps almost unchanged.