Advances in Photonics: Signal Processing, Sensing and Communications in the Underwater Environment
Description
The underwater and marine environment presents a demanding setting for optical and photonic systems. Propagation, sensing performance and system reliability are shaped by absorption, scattering, turbulence, pressure, salinity, biofouling, platform motion and complex water–seabed–infrastructure interfaces. This Topical Issue invites research papers, review papers and short communications reporting significant advances in optical and photonic signal processing, sensing and communications for underwater and marine applications.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Underwater optical wireless communications (UWOC) — including sources and detectors, modulation and coding, channel modelling and estimation, equalisation, MIMO, networking, pointing and tracking, and experimental demonstrations.
- Standards, interoperability and benchmarking — for emerging underwater optical and photonic communication and sensing systems, including calibration procedures, performance metrics, datasets and validation protocols.
- Novel optical and photonic components, devices and systems — for underwater measurement of acoustic and vibration fields, pressure, strain, temperature, chemical and biological quantities, and inherent and apparent optical properties (IOPs and AOPs).
- Fibre-optic and distributed sensing — including distributed acoustic, temperature and strain sensing; cable-based observatories; interrogation and calibration methods; and characterisation of cable–environment coupling.
- Underwater optical imaging and ranging — including spectroscopy, lidar, computational imaging and related reconstruction methods.
- Advanced signal processing and inverse methods — for guided and non-guided optical channels, including physics-informed and machine-learning approaches, denoising, localisation, classification and multimodal data fusion.
- Sensing arrays, networks and architectures — including interrogation schemes, edge or real-time processing, autonomous platforms and integrated ocean-observing systems.
- Quantum technologies — including emerging quantum sensing and quantum communication concepts, components and demonstrations for underwater environments.
Manuscripts will be handled through the journal’s standard rigorous peer-review process and ethical framework. Contributions should state their novelty clearly and provide appropriate validation, uncertainty analysis, benchmarking or field evidence. Accepted articles will be published online individually with a DOI and collected in this Topical Issue.
Submission and publication information
Submission deadline: 30 November 2026. Manuscripts may be submitted immediately and will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
Before submitting, please consult the journal’s Instructions for Authors and Ethical Standards. Submit through the JEOS-RP submission system. During submission, select the Topical Issue entitled “Advances in Photonics: Signal Processing, Sensing and Communications in the Underwater Environment”.
Guest Editors
Professor Mohammad Belal
National Oceanography Centre, European Way, Southampton, United Kingdom
Dr Jolyon De Freitas
Underwater Optical Systems, Electronic and Photonic Innovation Centre, White Rock Business Park, Paignton, Devon, United Kingdom
About JEOS-RP
The Journal of the European Optical Society–Rapid Publications (JEOS-RP) is a peer-reviewed, gold open-access journal published by EDP Sciences in partnership with the European Optical Society. View the journal aims and scope. View current indexing and journal metrics.
Article processing charges
Current JEOS-RP rates are shown below. Authors should verify the applicable charge at the time of submission.
| Article type | EOS member | Non-EOS member |
| Short communication (≤4 printed pages) | €550 | €900 |
| Research or review paper | €800 | €1150 |
EOS members receive reduced APCs. See EOS membership options and the JEOS-RP special-rate information.