A MEMS blue/green retroreflecting modulator for underwater optical communications

Author

Cox, William C. ; Gray, Kory F. ; Simpson, Jim A. ; Cochenour, Brandon ; Hughes, Brian L. ; Muth, John F.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC, USA

fYear

2010

fDate

20-23 Sept. 2010

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

Short range, high bandwidth underwater optical communications links are potentially useful for retrieving stored information from underwater systems. However many underwater systems have limited power capacity or limited weight budget. The use of a modulating retroreflector eliminates the need for a transmitting laser on the data bearing platform and reduces the pointing requirements by retroreflecting the modulated light back to the interrogating source. Blue/green operation of a MEMS Fabry-Perot modulator was demonstrated at data rates of 500 kbps and 1 Mbps in a 7.7 meter tank with water conditions varied by the addition of Maalox as a scattering agent.

Keywords

optical communication; optical modulation; retroreflectors; underwater acoustic communication; Fabry-Perot modulator; MEMS blue/green retroreflecting modulator; high bandwidth; short range; underwater optical communications; Bit error rate; Micromechanical devices; Mirrors; Optical fiber communication; Optical modulation; Optical sensors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

OCEANS 2010

Conference_Location

Seattle, WA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4332-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/OCEANS.2010.5664432

Filename

5664432