Verification and Evaluation of Lateral Wave Propagation in Marine Environment

Lateral wave plays an important role in electromagnetic (EM) wave propagation in layered conducting media. The full utilization of lateral wave in marine layered media may provide an innovative way of transmedia wireless communication. However, the existing approaches for solving lateral wave are tedious and complicated. In this letter, a simple model was presented to obtain lateral wave and other EM components in marine layered media. The model based on vector potential has simple process, definite physical meaning, and high accuracy. The theoretical computations were compared with the experimental data on sea. The good agreement of the two results verified the rationality and reliability of the model. In addition, the lateral wave near the sea surface was investigated theoretically and experimentally. The results show that lateral wave has a good performance of propagation from seawater to air. The present approach is more concise and the results can provide more physical insight compared to applying asymptotic expansion methods.