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The roughness of the ocean surface significantly impacts air-to-sea imaging, oceanographic monitoring, and optical communication. Most current and previous methods for addressing this roughness and its impact on optical propagation are either entirely statistical or theoretical, or are ‘mixed methods’ based on a combination of statistical models and parametric-based physical models. In this paper, we performed experiments in a 50-foot-wave tank on wind-generated waves, in which we varied the wind speed to measure how the surface waves affect the laser beam propagation and develop a geometrical optical model to measure and analyze the refraction angle and slope angle of the laser beam under various environmental conditions. The study results show that the laser beam deviations/distortions and laser beam footprint size are strongly related to wind speed and laser beam incidence angle.

The optical characteristics of an air/water interface have been widely studied for natural interface formations. However, the creation and management of artificial cavities creates a complicated interaction of gas and liquid that makes optical sensing and communication through the interface challenging. A ventilated cavity can reduce friction in underwater vehicles, but the resulting bubble drastically impedes optical and acoustic communication propagation. The complicated interaction at the air/water boundary yields surface waves and turbulence that make modeling and compensating of the optical properties difficult.Our experimental approach uses a narrow laser beam to probe the surface of the interface and measure the beam deflection and lensing effects. Using a vehicle model with a cavitator in a water tunnel, a laser beam is propagated outward from the model through the boundary and projected onto a target grid. The beam projection is captured using a high-speed camera, allowing us to measure and analyze beam shape and deflection. This approach has enabled us to quantify the temporal and spatial periodic variations in the beam propagation through the cavity boundary and fluid.