Intelligent Code-Division Multiplexing for Resilient Underwater Optical Wireless Communications

Gaurav Mahadik, Ananya Hazarika, Mehdi Rahmati

This paper presents a novel intelligent chaotic-based code-division multiple access (CDMA) scheme for underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC), addressing critical performance degradation caused by severe scattering and multipath dispersion in underwater environments. Unlike conventional modulation techniques such as on-off keying, which depend on precise pulse timing and show high sensitivity to channel distortions, the proposed approach leverages unpredictable deterministic chaotic sequences generated by the logistic map to enhance robustness against scattering-induced impairments. A Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) framework enables distributed agents to dynamically adapt chaotic map parameters, including initial conditions and bifurcation parameters, based on real-time environmental feedback, optimizing sequence generation to maintain low cross-correlation properties and improve resilience to multipath effects. Experimental validation using a 2-meter water tank testbed with controlled turbidity demonstrates superior performance compared to conventional schemes. The adaptive framework exhibits rapid convergence and relaxed synchronization requirements, making it highly suitable for distributed underwater networks where centralized coordination is impractical.