On the HARQ performance in underwater optical wireless communication systems with the presence of air bubbles

Abstract

This paper investigates the performance of the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) protocol, considering the bubble blockage and Generalized Gamma fading channel in underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) systems. The system performance in terms of bit-error rate and throughput is analytically analyzed. Computer simulations using the Monte Carlo method are also presented to validate the correctness of our analysis. From the obtained results, we discuss the effects of the bubble blockage and the effectiveness of the HARQ in different system settings.