A Comprehensive Review of End-to-End Channel Modeling, Impairments, and Performance Analysis in Underwater Optical Wireless Communications

Underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) has emerged as a promising technology for enabling high-data-rate and low-latency underwater links required by applications such as autonomous underwater vehicles, real-time video transmission, and the Internet of Underwater Things. Despite its advantages over acoustic and radio-frequency systems, the performance of UOWC is fundamentally limited by the complex, dynamic, and highly attenuating aquatic propagation environment. This survey presents a comprehensive and mathematically rigorous review of all major impairments affecting underwater optical wireless communication channels. The paper systematically examines electromagnetic propagation in lossy aquatic media, wavelength-dependent absorption and scattering mechanisms, radiative transfer theory and multipath effects, turbulence-induced fading, beam divergence and misalignment due to platform motion, and ambient light and receiver noise. Unified analytical models are developed to characterize received power, signal-to-noise ratio, and bit error rate for commonly employed modulation schemes. In addition, Monte Carlo–based simulation methodologies are presented to realistically capture the stochastic nature of underwater optical channels, supported by reproducible Python frameworks and illustrative performance visualizations. By integrating physical theory, statistical modeling, and simulation-based analysis within a unified framework, this survey provides a definitive reference for the design, evaluation, and optimization of robust next-generation underwater optical wireless communication systems.