Evaluation of light beams for short and medium range wireless communications

Abstract

Technological improvements in free space optical communication systems have reduced the cost and alternatives to fiber optic transmission. The advantages of the free space optical link over fiber optic cabling are primarily economic. In line with the demand for gigabyte link from 10 Mbit/s to 10 Gbit/s in the market, the uses of free space optical communication systems have increased exponentially from 1995 to 2008. However, free space optics is subject to atmospheric effects such as attenuation and scintillation which can reduce link availability and may introduce errors not seen in fiber transmission. In this paper we argue that optical wireless communication is an alternative to fiber optic transmission in short and medium range wireless communications and we discuss that the liability and availability of the free space optical link is mainly determined by the local atmospheric condition, this is to say that the transmission quality may be affected by weather conditions. For the evaluation we constructed an experimental communication network with a free space system. One way to characterize the strength of the turbulence fluctuation is by examining the Rytov variance for a plane wave. This Rytov variance physically represents the intensity fluctuation induced by atmospheric turbulence.

Keywords

free space optical communication / atmospheric turbulence / scintillation

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