Bhargava Kumar, B.K.Naik, R.P.Krishnan, P.2026-02-042022Optical and Quantum Electronics, 2022, 54, 6, pp. -3068919https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-022-03712-whttps://idr.nitk.ac.in/handle/123456789/22544The Navy is ubiquitous in every major geographic area of the world. It is estimated that 60% of global goods are transported by sea. The Navy plays a vital role in offering protection of the sea lanes and the trade transportation, preserves territorial ocean borders and the right to the resources contained in them, and facilitates the response to natural disasters and other disasters. In this paper, we proposed for the first time a multi-hop free-space optical (FSO)—underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) converging system. It is useful for the secure transport and tracking of goods and missiles through cargo ships for the navy and marine applications. The end-to-end average bit error rate (ABER) and outage probability performance of multi-hop FSO transmission systems converged with UWOC is analysed. The outage and ABER expression of the proposed system was obtained and the results were plotted for different weather conditions, turbulence regimes, pointing error and number of FSO hop scenarios. A case study is done on the extent to which the speed and height of the ship, the wind speed and the links between the ships affect the end-to-end outage performance of the proposed triple hop FSO converging UWOC system. This study is performed in Surathkal, which is located 20 km north of Mangalore. We assumed in this case study that the ships are located near surathkal in the Arabian Sea (GPS coordinates: N 13∘0′38.0988′, E 74∘47′17.4876′), Karnataka, India. Computational complexity of proposed cumulative distribution functions (CDF) have been evaluated with the existing CDF in the literature. In addition to that the expected cost analysis of the proposed communication system provided. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.Bit error rateDisastersDistribution functionsMarine applicationsOptical communicationUnderwater optical wireless communicationAverage bit-error ratesCase-studiesEnd to endFree-space opticalMulti-hop free-space opticalMulti-hopsNavy applicationsOutage performanceUnderwater wireless optical communicationsWireless optical communication systemsShips