Modeling the performance of optical modems in the DESERT underwater network simulator

While in the past decades only low rate acoustic modems were employed for underwater wireless communication, nowadays also high rate optical modems can be used for short range communication, up to a few hundred meters. A key ques- tion is what is the expected performance of a modem in a given scenario, in order to predict the coverage range of the system in a network deployment. In the literature, many models have been proposed, but each of them is limited to simulating a particular device or a limited set of scenarios. However, in the last decade, many sea evaluations of optical communications performance in different water conditions have been performed, and many datasets published and presented to the research community. In this paper we collect a database of performance figures of optical modems, including it in the DESERT Underwater network simulator. In addition, we simulate optical communication in a real scenario, thanks to the water measurements retrieved during the ALOMEX'15 NATO cruise.