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To this end, we make two changes to the simple system: (1) An optical dome was added near the receiver. An array of lenses is placed radially on the surface of the dome, reminiscent of the compound eye of an insect. The lenses make the source and detector planes conjugate, and each lens adds a new region of the source plane to the instrument's total field of view. (2) The receiver was expanded to include multiple photodiodes. With these two changes, the receiver has much more tolerance to misalignments (in position and angle) of the transmitter. Two versions of the optical dome (with 6" and 8" diameters) were designed using PTC’s Creo CAD software and modeled using Synopsys' CODE V optical design software. A series of these transparent hemispherical domes, with both design diameters, were manufactured using a 5-axis mill. The prototype was then retrofitted with lenses and compared with the computer-generated model to demonstrate the effectiveness of this solution. This work shows that the dome design improves the optical field of view of the underwater communication system considerably. Furthermore, with the experimental test results, a geometric optimization model was derived providing insights to the design performance limits. |
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CITATIONS
Cited by 2 scholarly publications.
Optical communications
Domes
Optical components
Spherical lenses
Wireless communications
