Research Status of MIMO Technology in Underwater Wireless Optical Communication

Underwater Wireless Optical Communication (UWOC) has the advantages of large capacity, high speed and etc. However, it suffers from limited communication range and data rate in practice due to the complex underwater environment and the limited bandwidth of optical devices. Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology has received considerable attention since it converts spatial single-stream data into multiple-stream data for parallel transmission. Therefore it can extend the UWOC range and alleviate the performance degradation caused by underwater absorption, scattering, and turbulence. In this paper, focusing on the MIMO technology in UWOC systems, we analyzed the channel modeling, research progress, experimental setups and prototypes, and the development and future trend of MIMO-UWOC technology.