Statistical Characterization of Wind-Induced Beam Refraction and UAV Instability in Water-to-Air Optical Channels
Abstract
Direct water-to-air (W2A) optical communications experience strong beam refraction at the dynamic sea surface and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) instability. This letter proposes a novel and tractable statistical channel model for a vertical W2A link between an underwater node and an UAV under varying wind speeds, modeling wind-induced pointing errors with a Beta mixture fitted via the Expectation-Maximization algorithm. By accounting for link interruptions due to total internal reflection (TIR) and effective receiver field-of-view limitations, we derive closed-form expressions for the channel distribution and link outage probability. Our analysis reveals a fundamental TIR-induced outage floor limiting link reliability and providing insight for robust W2A system design.
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BibTeX
@misc{nennouche2026statistical,
title = {{Statistical Characterization of Wind-Induced Beam Refraction and UAV Instability in Water-to-Air Optical Channels}},
author = {Mohamed Nennouche and Ikenna Chinazaekpere Ijeh and Mohammad-Ali Khalighi},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.22861},
eprint = {2605.22861},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.22861},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Statistical Characterization of Wind-Induced Beam Refraction and UAV Instability in Water-to-Air Optical Channels
AU - Mohamed Nennouche
AU - Ikenna Chinazaekpere Ijeh
AU - Mohammad-Ali Khalighi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.22861
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.22861
AB - Direct water-to-air (W2A) optical communications experience strong beam refraction at the dynamic sea surface and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) instability. This letter proposes a novel and tractable statistical channel model for a vertical W2A link between an underwater node and an UAV under varying wind speeds, modeling wind-induced pointing errors with a Beta mixture fitted via the Expectation-Maximization algorithm. By accounting for link interruptions due to total internal reflection (TIR) and effective receiver field-of-view limitations, we derive closed-form expressions for the channel distribution and link outage probability. Our analysis reveals a fundamental TIR-induced outage floor limiting link reliability and providing insight for robust W2A system design.
ER -