LAUSR

The ultraviolet communication (UV) channel has been shown to have unique features that could be exploited for covert ground-to-ground communications in complex non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios. A key challenge is the determination of optimal configuration of pointing directions of the UV nodes in unknown NLOS environments to maximize the link performance. In this paper, we proposed a novel steering optimization approach based on Finite Difference Stochastic Approximation (FDSA) to simultaneously optimize the transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) pointing directions without any knowledge about the locations and relative orientations of the two nodes. We perform parametric analysis using Monte Carlo channel simulations to investigate and select appropriate key algorithmic parameters and analyze the performance of the proposed algorithm. We also carry out experimentation using our custom designed UV Tx and Rx gimbal systems and demonstrate the utility and efficiency of the proposed steering optimization approach and show that the received photon count can be increased significantly.