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MEASUREMENT AND MODELLING OF A
FREE-SPACE OPTICAL LINK AND IN-FIELD
OFDM EXPERIMENT
MEASUREMENT AND MODELLING OF A FREE-SPACE
BY
AYMAN MOSTAFA, B.Sc.
a thesis
submitted to the department of electrical & computer engineering
and the school of graduate studies
of mcmaster university
in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Applied Science
c Copyright by Ayman Mostafa, January 2012
ii
To my parents
My wife
My son
Abstract
iv
received signal undergoes a fast-Fourier transform (FFT) to filter out a large portion
of the interfering noise providing more accurate measurements. Fitting with the log-
normal distribution is investigated. A finite-state Markov model is also derived and
its accuracy is verified by the simulation results.
The first realization of an in-field OFDM over FSO transmission system is imple-
mented and tested over the link. The received signal is investigated on the symbol
level and constellation diagrams are visualized. Transmission rates up to 300 Mbps
are achieved with average symbol-error rate (SER) on the order of 10−6 .
v
Acknowledgements
This work would not have been possible without the support and contributions of
many individuals.
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Steve
Hranilovic, whose invaluable support, guidance, motivation, logical discussions, and
innovative ideas were key factors to accomplish my work.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Mohamed Bakr for his guidance
both on academic and non-academic matters throughout the course of my program.
I am indebted to Dr. Ahmed Farid for his continuous help and support since my
first days in Canada.
I would like to thank my lab colleagues, Mohamed El-Shimy, Kasra Asadzadeh,
and Dr. Majid Safari, for many enjoyable conversations we had together.
I offer special thanks to my lab colleague, Danny Vacar, for his valuable contri-
butions in the software issues.
Among the technical staff in the ECE department at McMaster University, Terry
Greenlay deserves a special mention. Without his help, this work would not have
been possible in the given time frame. I would also like to thank Tyler Ackland and
Dan Anthony Manolescu who offered help in practical aspects of the experimental
setup.
vi
I would also like to thank the administrative staff, especially Cheryl Gies, who
facilitated the process entailed in developing this thesis.
I am deeply grateful to my wife for her patience, understanding, and continuous
support especially for taking care of our son almost alone while I was away for many
nights.
Finally, I would like to express my heartily gratitude to my parents for their
endless support and love.
vii
Contents
Abstract iv
Acknowledgements vi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Wireless Optical Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Intensity-Modulation Direct-Detection FSO Channel . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Optical Transmission of Radio Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4 Thesis Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.5 Thesis Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 Experimental Details 17
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 Objectives and Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3 FSO Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3.1 Transmitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.2 Receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4 FPGA-Based Digitizer Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.5 Backbone Firmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
viii
2.6 Experimental Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
ix
4.2.2 Advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.2.3 Peak-Average Power Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.2.4 Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.2.5 OFDM for FSO Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.3 OFDM over FSO Field Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.3.1 DC-Biased Unclipped OFDM over FSO . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.3.2 DC-Biased Clipped OFDM over FSO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.3.3 DVT-B over FSO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
x
List of Figures
xi
3.1 Proposed channel model for the FSO link. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2 Simplified channel model used for harmonic distortion measurements. 47
3.3 Normalized PSD at the receiver used for harmonic distortion measure-
ments at four frequencies: (a) 100 MHz, (b) 200 MHz, (c) 300 MHz,
(d) 400 MHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4 Transmitted pulse train used for frequency response measurements. . 51
3.5 Normalized magnitude frequency response of the FSO link obtained by
transmitting the pulse train shown in Fig. 3.4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.6 Histogram of thermal plus background noise samples at the receiver
along with Gaussian fit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.7 Block diagram of the measurement system at the receiver. . . . . . . 59
3.8 Normalized PSD of the received signal used for channel measurements. 60
3.9 Received irradiance fluctuations through different time scales: (a) 1
msec, (b) 10 msec, (c) 100 msec, (d) 1 sec (samples measured on Oc-
tober 30th , 2011 at 11:32 PM, temperature: 7 ◦ C, wind speed: 7.2
km/hr). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.10 Irradiance fluctuations statistics: (a) normalized autocovariance, (b)
normalized power spectral density (samples measured on October 30th ,
2011 at 11:32 PM, temperature: 7 ◦ C, wind speed: 7.2 km/hr). . . . . 64
3.11 Irradiance fluctuations during a 14-hour duration: (a) average inten-
sity, (b) scintillation index (samples measured on October 31st , 2011
starting from 12:00 AM). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.12 Weather condition corresponding to the irradiance fluctuations in Fig.
3.11: (a) temperature, (b) wind speed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
xii
3.13 Example (1) of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit in clear
weather conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.14 Example (2) of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit in clear
weather conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.15 Example (3) of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit in clear
weather conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.16 Example (4) of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit in clear
weather conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.17 Example of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit during re-
covery from heavy fog condition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.18 Example of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit during light
rain condition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.19 State diagram of the Markov model for the channel envelope when
K = 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.20 The histograms of the channel realizations obtained from the measure-
ments and the realizations generated by the Markov model (samples
measured on November 1st , 2011 at 07:41 AM). . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.21 Normalized autocovariance of the channel realizations obtained from
the measurements and generated by the Markov model. . . . . . . . . 81
4.1 Baseband multi-carrier communications system. . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.2 Statistics of the amplitude of a typical OFDM symbol with 40000 sub-
carriers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.3 OFDM symbol timing recovery by the means of cross-correlation. . . 92
xiii
4.4 Typical cross-correlation between the transmitted waveform of an OFDM
symbol and the received version. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.5 Spectrum of the 20 OFDM channels transmitted in the DC-biased
unclipped OFDM over FSO experiment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.6 Block diagram of the implemented OFDM over FSO transmitter. . . 98
4.7 DC-biased unclipped OFDM over FSO: (a) transmitted signal, (b) PSD
of the transmitted signal, (c) received signal, (d) PSD of the received
signal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.8 Block diagram of the implemented OFDM over FSO receiver. . . . . 100
4.9 Received constellations for DC-biased unclipped OFDM over FSO. . . 101
4.10 Symbol-error rates for DC-biased unclipped OFDM over FSO mea-
sured over 9.66 sec transmission time under clear weather conditions:
(a) per subcarrier, (b) per channel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.11 DC-biased clipped OFDM over FSO: (a) transmitted signal, (b) PSD
of the transmitted signal, (c) received signal, (d) PSD of the received
signal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4.12 Received constellations for DC-biased clipped OFDM over FSO. . . . 106
4.13 Symbol-error rates for DC-biased clipped OFDM over FSO measured
over 9.66 sec transmission time under clear weather conditions: (a) per
subcarrier, (b) per channel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
4.14 Symbol-error rates for 20 DVB-T channels transmitted over the FSO
link for 9.66 sec during a light-rain condition: (a) per subcarrier, (b)
per channel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
xiv
4.15 Received constellations for higher-order QAMs under clear weather
conditions: (a) 16-QAM, (b) 64-QAM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
A.1 Snapshot (1) from the STC software: terminal status. . . . . . . . . . 118
A.2 Snapshot (2) from the STC software: lasers power levels and receiver
gain level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
A.3 Snapshot (3) from the STC software: received power. . . . . . . . . . 120
A.4 Snapshot (4) from the STC software: diagnostics. . . . . . . . . . . . 121
xv
Chapter 1
Introduction
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M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
providers must find means to meet these increasing demands at an affordable cost.
Therefore, a flexible and cost-effective communications platform is required.
Optical fiber and radio frequency (RF) networks are the two primary technologies
used for modern broadband communications. Optical fibers benefit from virtually-
unlimited spectrum and low attenuation levels to achieve high transmission rates (10
Tbps and above) for long distances (several hundreds of kilometers) [13, 14]. These
advantages make optical fibers attractive for backbone connectivity in large-size net-
works connecting metropolitan area networks (MANs), wide area networks (WANs),
and worldwide networks. A key limitation, however, is that they suffer from inherent
mobility and flexibility problems by being a wired-communication technology, added
to their high infrastructure costs and large deployment times.
On the other hand, RF is the key technology for radio and television (TV) broad-
cast, cellular phones, and wireless local area networks (WLANs). Although RF di-
rectly addresses the mobility and flexibility problems, it is unable to sustain the
transmission rates and distances of optical fiber networks due to inherent limita-
tions on the available spectrum, limitations on the switching speeds of the electronic
devices at the microwave ranges, and high losses in the wireless channel. Current
state-of-the-art data rates for RF networks are capped below 1 Gbps. For example,
the WLAN IEEE 802.11n-2009 amendment supports data rates up to 600 Mbps [15,
p. 247]. In 2010, Samsung demonstrated a WiMAX- 2 mobile transmission based on
the IEEE 802.16m [16] with a data rate of 330 Mbps [17].
The incompatibly in signalling format as well as the mismatch in bandwidth and
transmission rates between the optical and RF channels give rise to the “last-mile
bottleneck” problem [18]. Last-mile delivery by the means of RF signals instead of
2
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
optical fibers limits throughput regardless of the high bandwidth available by the
feeder fiber. In the United States, it was estimated that 95% of the major buildings
in metropolitan areas are only 1.5 km far from a fiber network but do not have access
due to prohibitively high digging and installation costs (US $100,000 - $200,000) per
kilometer [19].
Free-space optical communication links can provide a potential solution to the
last-mile problem in many scenarios, taking advantage of both the flexibility of RF
networks and the high data rates of optical links. Key advantages of FSO links are
their use of unlicensed spectrum, rapid deployment, flexibility, ease of relocation,
immunity to RF and neighboring FSO network interference, inherent security, and
high power efficiency due to narrow laser beamwidths.
On the other hand, FSO communications face many challenges that affect their
reliability, transmission rate, and range. Weather conditions, such as fog, rain, snow,
or dust, impose attenuation and distortion on the propagating optical waves. Even
under clear sky conditions, the non-homogeneity in the atmospheric structure, caused
by spatial and temporal temperature gradients, causes random variations in the re-
fractive index at optical wavelengths. Such non-homogeneity induces fluctuations of
the signal intensity at the receiver termed as scintillation [20]. In addition, FSO links
employ lasers and transmitting assemblies with very small divergence angles making
the link sensitive to misalignment, i.e. pointing, errors that may result from wind
load or buildings sway and vibration [21]. Furthermore, eye-safety regulations impose
limitations on the amount of power transmitted from the lasers [22–26].
The basic approach to mitigate the atmospheric loss is to increase the transmitted
power up to the permitted levels specified by eye-safety and device limitations. In
3
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
heavy rain or foggy weather conditions, the attenuation can be severely high resulting
in an irretrievable loss of the optical signal and an outage of the link. In such situ-
ations, a hybrid RF-FSO system that adds a backup RF connection can recover the
link availability [27]. Atmospheric turbulence is traditionally mitigated by increas-
ing the receiver aperture size where the aperture-averaging effect will significantly
alleviate the scintillation [28]. More complicated techniques employ tracking sys-
tems [29], spatial diversity using multiple-aperture systems [30], maximum-likelihood
sequence detection (MLSD) [7], forward error correction codes [31–34], and relay
systems [35, 36].
nel
4
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
x(t) y(t)
Transmitter Optical channel fading Transimpedance
electronics h(t) amplifier
5
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
Sec. 3.3. Using IM/DD systems, as opposed to coherent systems, is preferred because
of design simplicity and the availability of inexpensive components.
The response of the atmospheric channel is unpredictable and time-varying. To
characterize the performance of FSO communication systems, a statistical model
of the FSO channel is required. Useful channel models should be mathematically
tractable and show a good fit with the channel measurements.
Early investigations of the intensity fluctuations of light waves were connected
with astronomy and the optical scintillation of stars. The history of the pioneering
experimental work for measuring the intensity fluctuations and scintillation of optical
waves propagating horizontally in the atmosphere near the earth surface goes back to
1950s and 1960s [37, 38]. Then, since 1970s, many experiments have been conducted
to characterize the FSO channel. Examples of recent experimental work are reported
in [28, 39–45]. In [28], a 1.5-km link operating at 1550 nm is used. The theory of
optical scintillation [46] is applied to develop a theoretical probability distribution
function (PDF) from the channel measurements. The fitting parameters with the
log-normal and gamma-gamma distributions are compared between the simulated
and experimental data. Moreover, the aperture-averaging effect on scintillation is
investigated using various receiver aperture sizes. A 1550-nm, 12-km FSO system is
reported in [43]. The link is employed to fit between the log-normal, gamma-gamma,
and exponential distributions and the channel measurements under weak, moderate,
and strong turbulence, respectively. In [45], a 1-km FSO link operating at 1550 nm
with transmission rates up to 1.5 Gbps is used to investigate the effect of fog and
rain on the channel attenuation. A semi-empirical model is derived to relate the
atmospheric attenuation with visibility and rain levels.
6
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
An unmodulated optical wave emitted from the laser at the transmitter side is
usually the typical scenario used in FSO channel measurements as in [28, 43]. Key
advantages of using a unmodulated waves are the simplicity of design and the ability
to use any sampling rate at the receiver based on the required accuracy. However, it is
not always possible to use unmodulated waves as in the case of McMaster University
FSO link where the low cutoff modulation frequency of the band-pass filters at the
transmitter and receiver is around 5 MHz. Using waveforms, such as sinusoids or
square waves, that modulate the transmitted optical wave at frequencies higher than
the cutoff frequency is the obvious solution, however, at the cost of added complexity
and increased sampling rates at the receiver. In [40], pulses with a frequency of 6
MHz are transmitted for channel measurements over a 2.7-km FSO link. The received
samples are bandpass filtered, rectified, and averaged to represent the received optical
intensity.
In any communication system, the received signal is corrupted by noise which sets
a fundamental limit for the reliable transmission range or data rate. Noise comes
form various sources for different communication systems, however, it can be broadly
classified into signal-independent and signal-dependent noise. For FSO systems, ex-
amples of signal-independent (additive) noise are the background noise, photodetector
dark current, and thermal noise. Sources of signal-dependent noise are laser intensity
noise, laser phase noise, and photodetector shot noise. In practice, the dominant noise
sources are the background radiation and thermal noise. Background radiation comes
mainly from the sun and black-body radiation and can be reduced using appropriate
spatial and solar filters. Thermal noise is inherent in any electronic system operating
above zero absolute temperature.
7
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
To obtain accurate results from the channel measurements, the effect of noise
should be alleviated or, alternatively, taken into account by using suitable mathemat-
ical models. In [28], an unmodulated optical signal is transmitted and the measured
samples are corrected by subtracting the mean value of the estimated noise from
all the samples. A more accurate mathematical approach is used in [43]. Noise is
included in the expression of the channel distribution
r = h + w, (1.2)
where r is the received noisy sample, h is the channel fading realization, and w is
the AWGN with mean µw and variance σw2 . Since fading and noise are assumed
independent, the sum distribution is given by
where px (x) is the PDF of the random variable x and ∗ denotes convolution. Param-
eter estimation techniques are applied to Eq. (1.3) where the noise parameters µw
and σw2 are assumed to be known.
In this thesis, a different measurement procedure is presented in Chapter 3. Im-
proved noise immunity of the measured samples is obtained by transmitting an optical
wave modulated by a sinusoid and applying fast Fourier transform (FFT) at the re-
ceiver to act as a notch filter that minimizes the noise corruption.
8
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
Fiber
channel
RF source RF receiver
E/O O/E
conversion conversion
9
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
f1
f4
f1
f4 f2 f3
O/E
Base station
f2 f3 Fiber
O/E
Base station
Fiber f1
f4
f2 f3
Central station E/O Fiber network O/E
Base station
Fiber
and without costly repeaters or RF interference. Moreover, using RoF allows the
centralization of the key RF signal processing functions (modulation/demodulation,
multiplexing/demultiplexing) at the central office instead of the base stations which
enables equipment sharing, dynamic allocation of resources, and simplified system
operation and maintenance [47, 50]. Another key advantage is simplifying the design
of the base stations into what is called remote antenna units. Each unit employs
only opto-electrical conversion and amplification to feed the antenna [50]. In micro-
cellular systems, the line-of-sight propagation path is dominant and multi-path effects
are minimized resulting in higher signal qualities. In addition, lower RF power profiles
are needed from both the antenna units and mobile units (cell-phones) resulting in a
reduction in environmental and health effects and an increase in the battery life [47].
The low attenuation and large bandwidth offered by RoF allow sharing of the fiber
network between multiple services, such as cellular, landline, Internet, and DVB, and
10
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
O/E
Fiber
Landline network
Cellular network
Internet O/E
Fiber
O/E
even between multiple operators resulting in large savings in cost and higher usage
efficiency.
The large installation, operation, and maintenance costs of RoF networks are
justifiable only in large population areas and big cities. However, these costs are not
feasible in rural and low-population areas, behind mountains, or across rivers and
highways. These problems can be solved using the wireless counterpart of the RoF
technology, namely Radio-over-Free-Space-Optics (RoFSO) as shown in Fig. 1.4. A
RoFSO link has all the advantages and drawbacks of the FSO channel. Ideally, it
should allow seamless integration between the RoF feeder network and destinations
where the optical fiber is not available.
Some experimental work related to RoFSO is reported in [29, 53–59]. In [54],
11
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
cellular signals (GSM and CDMA) are transmitted over a 500-m FSO link. Lasers
at wavelengths 850 and 1550 nm are used and performance is evaluated in terms of
optical loss, noise figure, and QPSK constellation curves. In [29, 55, 56], a dense
wavelength division multiplexing (D-WDM) system is developed to transmit four
radio services (3G-WCDMA, ISDB-T, WLAN 802.11a and 802.11g) simultaneously
over the link using four wavelengths around 1550 nm. The system is tested indoors
over a 3-meters range and outdoors over a 1-km distance where an automatic beam
tracking system is used for fine tuning to combat scintillation. Spectrum mask tests
for the transmitted RF services are introduced as the performance metric. In [57–59],
a 1-km D-WDM RoFSO link with automatic tracking system is reported. Four RF
services are transmitted simultaneously where adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR)
and carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the received channels are mainly considered.
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a very well-established
modulation scheme for modern broadband communication systems. It is currently
applied to digital audio broadcasting (DAB), DVB, digital subscriber line (DSL)
systems, and WLANs [60, 61]. Therefore, the study of OFDM over FSO systems
is appropriate. Many analytical and simulation studies exist for OFDM over FSO
[31, 62–64], however, to the best knowledge of the author, no experimental work in
this area has been reported. In this thesis, an experiment is introduced in Chapter 4
as the first realization of OFDM over FSO transmission.
12
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
This thesis is the first work to interact with the FSO link that has been deployed
across McMaster University campus in August 2010. It presents the experimental
work that has been conducted for FSO channel measurements and modelling as well
as for OFDM over FSO transmission.
By employing a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based digitizer board, a
digital system has been implemented to control the analog transceiver of the FSO
link. The waveform of the transmitted signal is composed on a personal computer
(PC) using numerical computation software environments such as MATLAB [65].
The waveform samples are uploaded to a DDR3 SDRAM on the digitizer board for
transmission by a 2-GSa/s digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that feeds the analog
laser driver. On the receiver side, the electrical signal obtained from the analog
receiver is sampled by a high-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) at rates up to
2 GSa/s and buffered on the on-board memory. Buffering sizes up to 3 GBytes at
a time are allowed. Then, the buffered samples are downloaded to a PC for further
processing. Such a buffering system provides seamless integration between the FSO
transceiver and MATLAB which facilitates testing various modulation and signalling
schemes over the FSO link. Although the developed firmware system is simple in
concept, there are many challenges during the design mainly because of the high
sampling and data rates. The most difficult task relates to the design of a finite-state
machine (FSM) that synchronizes and controls the data movement between the three
FPGAs available on the board. In this thesis, the developed system serves as the
backbone hardware for the FSO channel measurements and the OFDM over FSO
experiments.
13
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
A new measurement system is proposed and implemented for conducting the FSO
channel measurements [66]. The system offers more accurate results than previous
work by improving the noise immunity and increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
of the channel samples. By making use of the high sampling rates and large signal
processing capacity provided by the digitizer board, the channel measurements are
conducted using a high-frequency sinusoid instead of the conventional unmodulated
optical wave. The received signal undergoes a notch filter by the use of several FFT
blocks. Results obtained from the channel measurements show a good fit with the
log-normal distribution. Estimated coherence time justifies a slow-fading channel.
Obtained scintillation index values show a weak-turbulence condition. A computa-
tionally efficient Markov chain model, which is uniquely defined by a sparse matrix
and a vector, is developed and simulated. The comparison between the simulation
results and channel measurements shows a good fit for the channel distribution as well
as for the autocorrelation justifying the model strength. Such a simple model can be
used for accurately generating different channel realizations for simulation purposes.
A novel in-field OFDM over FSO experiment is conducted to demonstrate the
potential role of FSO channels for OFDM transmission [67]. It is the first realization
of an in-field OFDM over FSO system that supports 300 Mbps transmission rate
over a 1.87-km range. Moreover, the approach used is unique in that it provides
the ability to analyze the received waveforms on the symbol level after demodulation
where constellation diagrams and error rates are obtained.
14
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
The main focus of this thesis is the experimental work conducted to model the FSO
channel as well as the experiments demonstrating the transmission of OFDM signals
over FSO channels.
In Chapter 2, the experimental details are provided. The technical specifications
of the FSO link are presented including the geographical location, lasers and pho-
todetector specifications, dual-mode operation, signal and power levels, supported
transmission rates, and the management software. The FPGA-based digitizer board
is introduced highlighting the architecture and main features in terms of the compu-
tational capabilities, sampling rates, and memory size. The developed data-buffering
system is explained focusing on its ability to interface between MATLAB and the
FSO transceiver. Finally the entire experimental setup is outlined.
In Chapter 3, the results of the channel measurements under different weather
conditions are presented. A review of the atmospheric attenuation and turbulence
as well as the log-normal distribution for modelling the statistical behavior of the
scintillation is presented. A general channel model for the FSO link is proposed and
experimentally verified. The proposed channel measurements technique is developed
and the hardware implementation is outlined. The channel behaviour is investigated
through different time scales and an estimate of the coherence time is obtained. Fit-
ting between the channel histograms obtained from the measurements and the log-
normal distribution is justified under clear and foggy weather conditions while it fails
during rain. Finally, a finite-state Markov chain model for the channel is derived and
simulated.
15
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1. Introduction
In Chapter 4, the in-field experiments of OFDM transmission over the FSO chan-
nel are presented. A general review of the advantages and drawbacks of OFDM
modulation are introduced with focus on the practical issues of synchronization and
peak-to-average power ratio. The limitations of the experimental setup for success-
ful OFDM transmission are discussed along with the techniques used to mitigate
their effects. Three in-field OFDM over FSO experiments are explained in detail and
the performance is evaluated in terms of error rates under clear and rainy weather
conditions.
Finally, Chapter 5 presents concluding remarks and directions for future work.
16
Chapter 2
Experimental Details
2.1 Introduction
The experimental setup has two long term objectives. The first is to study FSO
channel behaviour by conducting channel measurements under a variety of weather
conditions and estimating the channel statistics from the measured samples as shown
in Chapter 3. The second objective is evaluating the performance of FSO communi-
cation systems by physical implementation and experimental investigation over the
17
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
18
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
that encloses cables for interconnections between the indoor and outdoor portions of
the installation. Lengths of cables carrying small-level signals should be shortened as
much as possible to minimize the attenuation levels.
A hardware platform should be employed in conjunction with the FSO link in
order to make use of its capabilities in both the analog and digital modes. High-speed
DACs and ADCs are required for driving the analog laser transmitter and capturing
the analog received signal, respectively. High-speed serial input/output ports (I/Os)
with optical connectivity are essential for interface with the digital transmitter and
receiver. Two QuiXilica TM -Triton TM -V5-VXS digitizer boards from Tekmicro [69]
have been used as discussed in Sec. 2.4.
A customized SONAbeam TM -1250-M FSO link was deployed in August 2010 across
McMaster University campus in west Hamilton area as illustrated in Fig. 2.1 [70].
The link consists of two identical full-duplex transceiver terminals. One terminal is in-
stalled on the rooftop of McMaster Innovation Park (MIP) building at Longwood area
southeast to the campus (latitude: 43◦ 150 23.7500 North, longitude: 79◦ 540 2.0600 West).
The other terminal is installed on the rooftop of Brandon-Hall (BH) students’ resi-
dence building at the northern-west backyard of the campus (latitude: 43◦ 150 57.4700 North,
longitude: 79◦ 550 10.9900 West). Other than a possibility for trees growth near MIP
that may block the line-of-sight between the two terminals, both the locations satisfy
the key requirements for a successful FSO link operation. Site views at both locations
are shown in Fig. 2.2. The distance between the two terminals is approximately 1870
meters.
19
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
Figure 2.1: Aerial view of the FSO link location (satellite image
2011
c DigitalGlobe
Inc. [70].
Brandon-Hall
McMaster McMaster
Innovation Innovation
Park Park
20
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
Table 2.1 shows the main environmental, mechanical, and electrical specifications
of the FSO link. The wide operating temperature range (−40 to 60◦ C), tight sealing
against water and dust, and stability against 120-km/hr wind speed qualify the link
for continuous outdoor operation throughout the year. Heating is necessary in cold
weather to prevent snow and sleet accumulation from blocking the transmitters or
receiver. Active solid-state laser cooling is used to keep the lasers temperatures below
35◦ C to increase their life times and sustain stable operation.
Each terminal consists of two main parts, the optical head and the power and
control assembly (PCA) box as shown in Fig. 2.3. The optical head represents
the physical interface with the FSO channel. It contains four laser transmitters
surrounding the receiver. The PCA box provides power as well as communication and
control signals from/to the optical head. The PCA box is user-accessible for selecting
the required reception mode. The manufacturer provides the SONAbeam TM Terminal
Controller (STC) software for managing the link [76]. It enables the user to control
21
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
Optical
4 1 head
Receiver
3 2
Brandon-Hall
Wall-penetration
Digital transmitters
Conduit (Lasers 2, 3, 4)
Figure 2.3: Customized SONAbeam TM -1250-M optical head and PCA box.
2.3.1 Transmitter
22
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
2.5 mrad full width at half maximum (FWHM). The optical head satisfies the ANSI-
CLASS 1, IEC-CLASS 1M, and CDRH-CLASS 1M safety standards even when the
four lasers are operating at full power simultaneously.
Analog Transmitter
Laser (1) in Fig. 2.3 allows the analog transmission of an electrical signal provided by
a standard 50-Ω, single-ended, AC-coupled SMB plug. Permitted input signal levels
are between ±500 mV. A circuit diagram of the driver equivalent circuit is shown in
23
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
Vss
Laser diode
RF input
DC Bias
Figure 2.4: Equivalent circuit of the analog laser driver (modified based on [83]).
Fig. 2.4. The DC bias is added at the driver stage to avoid clipping and maintain a
linear mapping between the input electrical signal and output optical power.
Digital Transmitters
Lasers (2), (3), and (4) are used to transmit digital binary data. Lasers (2) and (3)
are fed by a standard 1310-nm single-mode (SM) optical fiber with SC termination.
As illustrated in Fig. 2.5, the input data undergoes opto-electrical conversion, regen-
eration, and optional re-clocking before driving the laser transmitter. Re-clocking is
dependent on the standard being transmitted and is software-controllable. Transmis-
sion rates span from 100 Mbps up to 1.6 Gbps where several standards are supported
including Fast and Gigabit Ethernet, Fiber Channel, and High-Definition Television
(HDTV). Protocol-independent transmission is also supported where re-clocking is
bypassed and raw bits can be transmitted with an arbitrary rate. The bypass mode
is the most suitable mode for investigating binary transmission over the link.
Laser (4) can be configured to allow the same operation as lasers (2) and (3)
by transmitting the data fed from the common fiber input. Alternatively, it can be
24
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
Opto-electrical Electro-optical
conversion conversion
Bypass
(software-controllable)
Figure 2.5: Equivalent circuit of the driver for Lasers (2) and (3).
2.3.2 Receiver
The receiver aperture, shown in Fig. 2.3, is 20 centimeters in diameter. Such large
aperture area is the main reason for the reduced scintillation at the receiver as shown
in Chapter 3. The receiver field-of-view is 2.3 mrad. Such small field-of-view added to
two spatial and two spectral solar filters help minimize the background and radiation
noise. The active detecting element is a single Indium-Gallium-Arsenide (InGaAs)
avalanche photodiode (APD) with 200-µm length. A block diagram of the receiver
equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 2.6. The photodetector is followed by a tran-
simpedance amplifier (TIA) with automatic gain control (AGC) configured via the
STC software. The receiver supports dual-mode operation, analog or digital reception
at a time. The operational mode is configured from the PCA box.
In analog mode, the AGC should be disabled and a fixed gain is set by the
25
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
AGC (softwfare-controllable)
APD
1310 nm SM fiber
TIA SC connector
Digital output
Electro-optical
100 Ω differential
conversion
SMB connectors Configured from
Analog (RF) output the PCA box
user from the STC software. The output voltage is provided directly from the tran-
simpedance amplifier through a standard 100-Ω differential-output via a pair of SMB
connectors. Typical output levels are between ±30 mV at the gain level 2000 V/A.
In digital mode, the AGC is enabled and the output of the transimpedance am-
plifier feeds internal electronics where it undergoes threshold detection and electro-
optical conversion to provide the binary output through a standard 1310-nm SM fiber.
Data rates from 100 Mbps up to 1.6 Gbps are supported.
The architecture of the QuiXilica TM -Triton TM -V5-VXS board is shown in Fig. 2.7
and the main features and specifications are summarized in Table 2.3 [84]. Typical
customers of these high-performance boards are the military agencies. Key applica-
tions are communications, radar, sonar, and electronic warfare.
26
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
The core processing units are three Virtex TM -5 FPGAs from Xilinx [85]. FPGAs
(0) and (2) are XC5VSX95 while FPGA (1) is XC5VFX100. Each FPGA is supported
by two 512-MBytes DDR3 SDRAM memory banks, giving a total storage capacity of
3 GBytes on-board memory. The data bus width is 64 bits with clocking frequencies
between 300 and 400 MHz. Such memory size enables using the board as a large
buffer for the transmitted or received samples. Inter-FPGA connectivity is supported
by four high-speed serial ports (up to 3.75 Gbps each) and 50 differential pairs of
parallel I/O paths between every pair of the three FPGAs. The front-panel high-
speed serial interface consists of two SFP+ ports and a single QSFP (quadruple
SFP) port giving a total of six digital I/O channels each running at up to 3.75 Gbps.
This interface enables the implementation of a variety of standard protocols, including
Gigabit Ethernet, Fiber Channel, and 10-Gigabit Ethernet. The analog I/O front-
end is supported by a 10-bits, 2.2-GSa/s ADC input and a 12-bits, 4-GSa/s DAC
output. Four on-board clock sources exist in addition to a derivative of the external
clock used for the ADC and DAC.
27
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
Trigger + 512 MB
Trigger ─ DDR3 SDRAM
FPGA 2
DAC out XC5VSX95 512 MB
DDR3 SDRAM
512 MB
DDR3 SDRAM
FPGA 1
XC5VFX100
512 MB
DDR3 SDRAM
Clock in
512 MB
Trigger + DDR3 SDRAM
FPGA 0
Trigger ─ XC5VSX95
512 MB
ADC in + DDR3 SDRAM
ADC in ─
Figure 2.7: Architecture of the Triton TM -V5-VXS digitizer board (modified based on
[84]).
28
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
29
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
The capabilities of the Triton TM board allow the real-time implementation of many
coding and modulation schemes for investigation over the FSO link. However, in this
thesis, the approach taken is to use the board as a large buffer for the samples of the
transmitted or received waveforms, while all the necessary digital signal processing is
done off-line on PCs using software packages such as MATLAB.
A block diagram of the firmware used on the three FPGAs illustrating the key
functional blocks along with data paths is shown in Fig. 2.8. A firmware pack-
age is provided from Tekmicro that contains black-box cores for the DDR3 SDRAM
controller, a 4:16 demultiplexer (DMUX) for interface with the ADC, and a 16:4 mul-
tiplexer (MUX) for interface with the DAC. In addition, a Gigabit Ethernet UDP/IP
core is provided for establishing an Ethernet connection between the board and a PC
for full-duplex data transfer. The data transfer is controlled on the PC using a C++
code that is also provided by the manufacturer. A key challenge of the design is the
distribution of the memory banks among the three FPGAs. These memory banks re-
quire an FSM that monitors, controls, and synchronizes the samples movement across
the different clock domains on different FPGAs at rates up to 16 × 125 MSa/s as well
as synchronizes the data transfer between the on-board memories and the PC.
The analog signal delivered by the transimpedance amplifier of the FSO receiver
is sampled at the rate 2 GSa/s with 10 bits/Sa. The on-board ADC is followed
by a matched 1:4 DMUX to split the 2-GSa/s stream into four parallel 500-MSa/s
differential data paths which are connected to differential I/Os on FPGA (0). The
ADC interface core on the FPGA mainly acts as another 4:16 DMUX that further
splits the data stream into 16 parallel 125-MSa/s paths. The 125 MHz frequency
30
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
ADC buffers
controller GTP transceiver
Ethernet Optical SFP
controller (GigE physical layer)
DAC buffers
controller
1000BASE-LX
(fiber)
DDR3 DAC
DAC stream
memory buffers
2 GHz
16X125 MSa/s
oscillator
Figure 2.8: Block diagram of the backbone firmware and hardware used as a universal
analog transceiver.
31
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
used is four times less than the maximum allowed clock frequency (550 MHz) for
the Virtex TM -5 family making clock constrains more relaxed. Finally, the required
sampling rate and number of bits per sample are selected before going to the memory
buffer. The ADC buffer controller is basically an FSM that controls the flow of data
between the DDR3 SDRAM controllers across the three FPGAs.
For the DAC path, the samples of the transmitted waveform arrive from the on-
board memory buffers in 16 parallel 125-MSa/s paths. A 16:4 MUX compresses the
stream into four 500-MSa/s differential data paths. Finally, the on-board DMUX/DAC
further multiplexes the paths into a single 2-GSa/s stream that drives the analog laser
transmitter of the FSO link.
The Gigabit Ethernet controller on FPGA (2) is responsible for communications
between the board and the connected PC and contains three channels. Two data
channels are used to upload/download samples to/from the DAC/ADC buffers. The
third is a control channel for sending start/stop commands to the board.
For applications that require continuous operation, such as channel measurements
during several hours or days, the system can be left running continuously however
once the on-board memory banks are full, a period of approximately 24 minutes is
needed to dump the entire samples (up to 3 GBytes) into a PC before capturing a
new set of samples.
A block diagram of the entire experimental setup at both locations is shown in Fig.
2.9. Each optical head is connected to a PC via a serial RS-232 port (DB9 connector)
to run the STC software. For redundancy, each optical head has another connection
32
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
to the McMaster University campus LAN via an Ethernet switch in case the roof PC
fails. For data connections, each terminal is connected to a Triton TM digitizer board
via the PCA box where the DAC and ADC are connected to the analog transmitter
and receiver, respectively while the optical SFP port is connected to the digital data
interface. The digitizer board is connected to the PC via an optical Gigabit Ethernet
link using the optical SFP to establish a UDP/IP connection for data transfer between
the on-board memory and the PC as well as for controlling the board operation.
The input to the ADC and DAC sampling clock is driven by an ultra low-noise 2-
GHz crystal oscillator from Wenzel [86]. On-board FPGAs are programmed via a
JTAG connection between the PC and the board. A 4-channel, 20-GSa/s digital
oscilloscope is used for visualizing signals. A weather station is fixed on top of the
optical head at MIP since most of the time this side is used as the receiver. The
weather station is provided with a software for logging temperature, pressure, wind
speed, wind direction, and rain level [87]. The entire system at both locations is
managed remotely from the central PCs at the FOCAL lab at ITB building. The
setup at MIP site is shown in Fig. 2.10.
33
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
FOCAL Lab
Weather
McMaster
station
Brandon-Hall GigE Innovation
connection
Park
100 M 100 M
Campus Network
Ethernet Ethernet
10 M 10 M
RS 232 RS 232
Ethernet Ethernet
DAC DAC
Analog Optical 1.87 km Optical Analog
DDR3 PCA head head PCA DDR3
ADC ADC
SDRAM box box SDRAM
34
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
(a)
Weather
station
Mounting
mast
Optical head
PCA box
McMaster
Innovation
Park Outdoors
(b) Conduit
Digital scope
Indoors
Interface with
Oscillator PCA box
power supply
FSO link power
2 GHz supply
oscillator
Digitizer Digitizer board
board power supply and
ventilation chassis
McMaster
Innovation PC
Park
Figure 2.10: Experimental setup at McMaster Innovation Park: (a) outdoors, (b)
indoors.
35
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 2. Experimental Details
2.7 Conclusions
In this chapter, the details of the experimental FSO link at McMaster University
were presented. The link supports both analog and digital transmission. Technical
specifications of the optical heads along with their main features and functionalities
were described in detail. The high-speed digitizer board used as the hardware plat-
form was briefly outlined. The implemented firmware was explained highlighting its
main function as a large buffer. Such a buffer is used for transmitting arbitrary gener-
ated waveforms using the DAC and buffering the received samples over the ADC for
off-line processing. The firmware can be used as a universal transceiver for channel
measurements as well as for testing various modulation schemes over the FSO link.
Finally, the architecture of the overall experimental setup was described. This setup
acts as the foundation for the experimental work explained in the remaining of the
thesis.
In Chapter 3, FSO channel measurements are conducted under a variety of at-
mospheric conditions. The received samples are used to estimate the statistics of the
fading for proper channel modelling.
36
Chapter 3
3.1 Introduction
Optical waves propagating through the atmosphere experience attenuation and in-
tensity fluctuations that degrade the performance of FSO communication systems
near the earth surface even for short distances. Attenuation is usually fixed over
relatively long durations and therefore can be predicted or measured and accounted
for. On the other hand, intensity fluctuations are inherently random and occur on
the order of milliseconds resulting in a slow-fading channel. From a communication
systems design perspective, it is always required to model a fading channel using
statistical models. In this chapter, the experimental setup described in Chapter 2
along with a newly developed measurement technique are employed for conducting
the FSO channel measurements and modelling.
In Sec. 3.2, a brief review of the FSO channel and general propagation effects
37
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
2 2
Drx Drx
hg ≈ ≈ , Dtx << θtx L, (3.1)
(Dtx + θtx L)2 (θtx L)2
where Dtx is the transmitting lens diameter, θtx is the transmitted beam divergence
angle, L is the propagation distance, and Drx is the receiving lens diameter.
38
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
39
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
ha = hl hsc . (3.2)
hl = e−αL/2 , (3.3)
where L is the propagation distance (km) and α is the atmospheric attenuation coef-
ficient (km−1 ). By assuming a small aerosol absorption compared to Mie scattering,
the following formula can be used [91]
−q(V )
3.91 λ
α≈ , (3.4)
V 550 nm
where λ is the optical wavelength (nm), V is the visibility (km), and q(V ) is the size
distribution of the scattering particles given by
1.6 V > 50
q(V ) = 1.3 50 ≥ V > 6 . (3.5)
1
0.585V
3 6>V
Usually the atmospheric loss is significant for foggy weather or when the water-vapor
density is considerably high, but it can be ignored for clear weather conditions com-
pared to the geometrical loss.
On the other hand, scintillation, as a random phenomena, is characterized using
40
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
mathematical statistical models. Many of these models have been proposed since
1970s, however none of them can be universally applied due to the non-stationary
nature of the atmospheric turbulence [20]. In the weak-turbulence regime, the log-
normal distribution is usually used. It is widely accepted because of the considerable
match with the experimental measurements as well as the mathematical simplicity,
i.e. it is uniquely defined by a single parameter that can be directly related to
the weather measurements. However under strong turbulence conditions, the log-
normal distribution usually fails to give good fit with the measurements and doubly-
stochastic distributions are applied [20]. The K-distribution [92, 93] and the log-
normally modulated exponential distribution [94] are good candidates that usually
show good agreement with the experimental measurements in the strong-turbulence
regime. The IK distribution [95], the Beckmann distribution [96], and the gamma-
gamma distribution [8] have been shown to fit with the channel measurements under
a wide range of atmospheric conditions. In this thesis, the log-normal distribution is
mainly considered since it has a simple form and the channel measurements show a
weak-turbulence condition with scintillation indices far below unity (on the orders of
10−2 and 10−1 ).
41
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
distribution [90].
Mathematically, the log-normal distribution follows from the Rytov method, i.e.
Rytov approximation, for solving Maxwell’s wave equation in a random medium [89,
Sec. 5.2.1] and [20, Sec. 5.4 and 5.7.2].
The electric field U (r) of a narrowband wave propagating in a medium with a
random index of refraction n(r) is described by the Maxwell’s wave equation
where r = x + y + z with x, y, and z are unit vectors along the x, y, and z axes,
respectively, k = 2π/λ is the wave number, ∇ ≡ (∂/∂x)x + (∂/∂y)y + (∂/∂z)z is
the gradient operator, and ∇2 is the Laplacian operator. The last term in Eq. (3.6)
represents polarization which can be ignored for the case of optical waves propagating
in the atmosphere [89].
The index of refraction n(r) can be expressed as the sum of the free-space value,
i.e. unity, plus a random component due to atmospheric turbulence,
The Rytov approach for solving Eq. (3.8) assumes that the electric field U (r) can be
expressed as the multiplication of an unperturbed field and perturbation terms in the
42
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
form
U (r) = eΨ0 (r)+Ψ1 (r)+Ψ2 (r)+...... = U0 (r)eΨ1 (r)+Ψ2 (r)+...... = U0 (r)eΨ(r) , (3.9)
where U0 (r) = eΨ0 (r) is the unperturbed free-space field component while eΨ(r) =
eΨ1 (r) + eΨ2 (r) + ...... represents the perturbation terms, where Ψ1 (r) and Ψ2 (r) are
the first-order and second-order complex phase perturbations, respectively.
By considering only the first-order perturbation term, i.e. Ψ(r) = Ψ1 (r), which is
usually valid under weak-turbulence conditions, Eq. (3.9) simplifies to
where χ1 (r) denotes the first-order log-amplitude and is Gaussian distributed, while
S1 (r) denotes the first-order log-phase. Therefore, the irradiance of the field at any
point in the turbulent medium along the propagation path is given by
∗
I(r) = |U (r)|2 = |U0 (r)|2 eΨ1 (r)+Ψ1 (r) = |U0 (r)|2 e2χ1 (r) . (3.12)
Since the exponent in Eq. (3.12) is Gaussian distributed, it follows that the logarithm
of the irradiance is Gaussian distributed and, by definition, the irradiance is log-
normally distributed. The notation in Eq. (3.12) can be simplified by discarding
the spatial dependence and considering the irradiance at some point, usually at the
43
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
receiver,
I = A2 e2χ1 , (3.13)
where A = |U0 |. Equation (3.13) states that the irradiance intensity is equivalent to
the free-space unperturbed value A2 modulated by the random fluctuation term e2χ1 ,
where the log-amplitude χ1 is Gaussian distributed, i.e.
" #
1 (χ1 − µχ )2
pχ1 (χ1 ) = √ exp − , (3.14)
2πσχ 2σχ2
where µχ = hχ1 i is the mean of the log-amplitude χ1 , σχ2 = hχ21 i−hχ1 i2 is the variance,
and h·i denotes the expected value. From Equations (3.13) and (3.14), the PDF of
the irradiance fluctuations is given by the log-normal distribution
"
I
2 #
1 ln A2
− 2µχ
pI (I) = √ exp − , I > 0. (3.15)
2 2πσχ I 8σχ2
and
2
σI2 = A4 e(4µχ +4σχ ) e4σχ − 1 ,
2
(3.17)
where µI = hIi is the mean of the irradiance I and σI2 = hI 2 i − hIi2 is the variance.
The irradiance mean µI refers to the fixed term of the atmospheric gain that can
be compensated for by amplifying or attenuating the optical power to obtain a unity
average gain. Therefore, by setting µI = 1, then A = 1, µχ = −σχ2 , and Eq. (3.15)
44
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
simplifies to
" 2 #
1 ln I + 2σχ2
pI (I) = √ exp − I > 0, hIi = 1. (3.18)
2 2πσχ I 8σχ2
2 2 2
By defining the log-irradiance variance σln I = h(ln I) i−hln Ii , then from Eq. (3.13),
" 2 #
1 ln I + 12 σln
2
I
pI (I) = √ exp − 2
I > 0, hIi = 1. (3.20)
2πσln I I 2σln I
2
The normalized variance of the irradiance, well known as the scintillation index σSI ,
is given by
2 hI 2 i − hIi2
σSI = , I > 0. (3.21)
hIi2
For a normalized irradiance, the scintillation index is equal to the variance. Therefore,
Eq. (3.21) simplifies to
2 2
σSI = hI 2 i − 1 = σI2 = e(σln I ) − 1, I > 0, hIi = 1. (3.22)
Proper characterization of the FSO link is necessary for a clear interpretation of the
channel measurements as well as for accurate simulation of the underlying commu-
nication system. A proposed general channel model for the link is illustrated in Fig.
45
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
hg hl hsc(t) w(t)
FSO channel fading AWGN
r(t) = R G hg hl hsc (t) [fLD [s(t) ∗ hT x (t)] ∗ hRx (t)] + w(t), (3.23)
In the following subsections, the blocks in Fig. 3.1 are experimentally quantified. The
channel measurements are presented in Sec. 3.4.
46
M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
x(t) r(t)
G
Figure 3.2: Simplified channel model used for harmonic distortion measurements.
Linearity is critical when analog waveforms, such as OFDM signals, are transmitted
using the optical links. As opposed to the fiber channel, the FSO atmospheric channel
can be assumed linear. However, the laser transmitter is a source of non-linearity.
To quantify such non-linearity, a third-order memory-less polynomial model is used
along with the simplified channel model illustrated in Fig. 3.2. The received signal
r(t) is expressed as
where h represents the channel gain, x(t) is the input current to the laser driver,
and a, b, c, and d are the polynomial coefficients to be determined experimentally.
Noise and optical power fluctuations at the receiver are ignored by averaging many
measurements over time. The scaling factor R G h is assumed unity without loss of
generality.
To obtain the polynomial coefficients, a single tone at some frequency f0 is trans-
mitted using the maximum available power (60 mW). Therefore, Eq. (3.25) can be
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
f0 (MHz) a c d
100 −0.03348 0.078322 0.015812
200 −0.02480 0.060347 0.015692
300 −0.02478 0.052214 0.012373
400 −0.00903 0.035498 0.007113
rewritten as
c 3d c d
r(t) = a + + b+ cos [2π(f0 )t] + cos [2π(2f0 )t] + cos [2π(3f0 )t]
2 4 2 4
(3.26)
when x(t) = cos (2πf0 t).
At the receiver, the output signal r(t) is sampled at 5 GSa/s using a digital scope.
The power spectral density (PSD) is estimated from the time samples to obtain the
polynomial coefficients using Eq. (3.26) by equating the corresponding frequency co-
efficients. Figures 3.3 (a), (b), (c), and (d) show the PSDs of the received waveforms
when the frequencies 100, 200, 300, and 400 MHz are transmitted, respectively. Cor-
responding values of a, c, and d, normalized with respect to b, the coefficient of the
fundamental frequency f0 , are shown in Table. 3.1. Slight differences between the
coefficients at different frequencies are mainly due to the non-flat frequency response
of the system as will be shown in Subsec. 3.3.2. For all the frequencies tested, the
power level of the second harmonic is at least 22 dB less than the fundamental fre-
quency while the third harmonic is at least 35 dB less. Therefore, non-linearity is
negligible and will not be considered.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
(a) (b)
0 0
−40 −40
−50 −50
−60 −60
−70 −70
−80 −80
−90 −90
−100 −100
0 500 1000 1500 0 500 1000 1500
Frequency (MHz) Frequency (MHz)
(c) (d)
0 0
−10 −10
a = −0.02478 a = −0.0090357
−20 b=1 −20 b=1
c = 0.052214 c = 0.035498
−30 d = 0.012373 −30 d = 0.0071128
−40 −40
−50 −50
−60 −60
−70 −70
−80 −80
−90 −90
−100 −100
0 500 1000 1500 0 500 1000 1500
Frequency (MHz) Frequency (MHz)
Figure 3.3: Normalized PSD at the receiver used for harmonic distortion measure-
ments at four frequencies: (a) 100 MHz, (b) 200 MHz, (c) 300 MHz, (d) 400 MHz.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
500
450
400
Transmitter input voltage (mV)
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Time (µsec)
Figure 3.4: Transmitted pulse train used for frequency response measurements.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
−2
Normalized power spectral density
−4
−6
−8
−10
−12
−14
−16
−18
−20
1 2 3
10 10 10
Frequency (MHz)
Figure 3.5: Normalized magnitude frequency response of the FSO link obtained by
transmitting the pulse train shown in Fig. 3.4.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
3.3.3 Noise
In FSO systems, the dominant noise sources are the background radiation and the
thermal noise at the receiver. Being a random phenomena, noise is best characterized
using stochastic models. Background and thermal noise is usually modelled as an
AWGN.
The PDF of an AWGN is given by
" #
1 (r − µw )2
pr (r) = p exp − , (3.27)
2πσw2 2σw2
where r is the noise sample, µw = hri is the mean of r, and σw2 = hr2 i − hri2 is the
variance.
The Gaussian fit with noise samples can be obtained using the maximum likelihood
method [97] by maximizing the log-likelihood function given by
N
( " #)
X 1 (ri − µw )2
L(µw , σw2 ) = ln p exp − , (3.28)
i=1
2πσw2 2σw2
where ri is the ith received noise sample and N is the total number of samples. It
can be shown that µ̂w and σ̂w2 that maximize Eq. (3.28) are given by [98]
N N
1 X 1 X
µ̂w = ri and σ̂w2 = (ri − µ̂w )2 , (3.29)
N i=1 N i=1
respectively.
To obtain the noise statistics for the available setup, the laser transmitter is turned
off and the receiver output is sampled at 2 GSa/s. Figure 3.6 shows the histogram
of the noise samples, representing the background and thermal noise, along with the
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
Gaussian fit. The histogram is obtained by uniformly dividing the noise samples
range into M bins each with width δ. The number of samples in each bin nm is scaled
down using the formula
M
nm X
ñm = , nm = N, (3.30)
δ×N m=1
M
X
δ × ñm = 1. (3.31)
m=1
The total number of samples used is N = 225 and the bin width δ = 0.49 mV which
is the ADC resolution. Using Eq. (3.29), the estimated mean and variance of the
Gaussian distribution are given by
respectively.
The root mean square error (RMSE) is usually used for assessing the goodness
of fit between the measured samples and the fitting distribution [97]. The RMSE is
defined by v
u
u1 X M
RMSE = t (ñm − n̂m )2 , (3.33)
M m=1
where n̂m is the number of samples in the mth bin calculated using the fitting distri-
bution. For the noise samples shown in Fig. 3.6, the RMSE equals 0.028116.
To quantify the effects of the background noise and thermal noise separately, the
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
0
10
Noise samples
µ = 0.62142 mV Gaussian fit
σ = 0.79313 mV
RMSE = 0.028116
−1
10
−2
10
Probability density
−3
10
−4
10
−5
10
−6
10
−6 −4 −2 0 2 4 6
Noise amplitude (mV)
Figure 3.6: Histogram of thermal plus background noise samples at the receiver along
with Gaussian fit.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
receiver aperture was covered to remove the background noise, however no difference
in the noise statistics was observed. Moreover, no difference was observed between
day and night measurements. Therefore, noise at the receiver comes mainly from the
thermal noise of the electronic circuits and can be modelled as an AWGN.
For the available FSO link, the noise at the receiver depends mainly on the gain
level used by the transimpedance amplifier following the photodetector. It was found
by many measurements that the gain level G = 2000 V/A is the one that maximizes
the SNR of the received signal at the two receivers at both locations. It was also
found that the two receivers do not have the same noise characteristics. The receiver
at BH has approximately 7.5 dB noise power more than its counterpart at MIP at
the gain level G = 2000 V/A. This is the reason why the optical head at BH was
always used as the transmitter while the one at MIP was used as the receiver. All
the experimental work presented in this thesis was conducted by transmitting from
BH and receiving at MIP using the gain level G = 2000 V/A.
The maximum average optical power transmitted from the analog laser is 60 mW.
At the receiver, the average received optical power for an unmodulated transmission
in clear weather conditions (visibility is more than 24 km [99]) is 12 µW. Therefore,
the average total loss in optical power at the receiver is approximately 37 dB. Out of
many possible sources for the loss, geometrical loss hg and the average atmospheric
loss hl can be roughly estimated.
Geometrical loss can be obtained using Eq. (3.1). For the available FSO link,
the laser divergence angle θtx = 2.5 mrad, the link distance L = 1.87 km, and the
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
receiver diameter Drx = 0.2 m. Therefore, the resulting geometrical loss hg = 27 dB.
In clear weather conditions, the average atmospheric loss hl estimated using Eq. (3.3)
is approximately 1 dB. Other possible sources of the power loss are alignment loss,
receiver filters and lens loss, and coupling loss.
37
| {zdB} = |27{zdB} + 1| {z
dB} + |9 {z
dB}
512 30
9
= .
2 × 10 117.187500 × 106
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
As shown in Fig. 3.7, the received signal is sampled at 2 GSa/s and 8192 = 16 × 512
consecutive samples are buffered at a time. These samples are divided into 16 non-
overlapping groups where each group undergoes a 512-point FFT. Xilinx Radix-4
FFT core [101] is used since it gives the lowest latency for the considered design. The
following 11456 samples are discarded because of the FFT latency time. For each
group, the FFT real and imaginary coefficients corresponding to the bin contains
the 117.187500 MHz frequency are selected to calculate the magnitude frequency
response. Finally, the magnitudes coming from the 16 segments are averaged and
buffered on the on-board memory with an 8-bit resolution. Bit growth during cal-
culations is shown in Fig. 3.7 along the data path. Bit allocation is a compromise
between the dynamic range and resolution. It is carefully chosen to avoid clipping
and keep high resolution at the same time. Using the above measurement parameters
produces channel samples at the rate of 101.8 kSa/s.
The family of Fourier transforms, including the discrete Fourier transform (DFT)
which is efficiently implemented using FFT, is a one-to-one transformation, i.e. there
is a one-to-one correspondence between every transformation pair, and it is always
possible to move from one domain to the other using the forward and inverse transfor-
mation functions. Another important feature of Fourier transforms is linearity that
keeps the scaling ratios in both domains. Therefore, obtaining the channel distri-
bution from the Fourier coefficients is exactly equivalent to getting it from the time
samples.
The key advantage of applying FFT is that it helps reject a large portion of
the interfering noise. All the noise in the receiver electrical bandwidth is rejected
except for the noise remaining in the frequency bin of interest. The bin width is
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
30 periods
0.5 ns 4.096 μs
9.824 μs
1 2 3 ……. 511 512 513 ……. 8192 Discard 11456 ADC samples 19649 19650 …….
8 bits 1 2 ……………. 16
18 bits Re Im Re Im Re Im
2 2 2 2 2
Re(·) Im(·) Re(·) Im(·) Re(·) Im(·)2
36 bits
35 bits
17 bits
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
−10
−20
−40
−50
−60
−70
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
512−FFT bins
Figure 3.8: Normalized PSD of the received signal used for channel measurements.
determined by the FFT length and can be made arbitrary small by increasing the
length to obtain smaller bin width and less noise. However, increasing the FFT
length will decrease the resulting sampling rate (101.8 kSa/s). In addition, from an
implementation perspective, increasing the FFT length will increase the latency time
needed by the FFT core. Therefore, more samples will be discarded and the number
of samples captured for processing will be reduced. As a compromise between the
noise performance and FFT latency, the data samples are divided into 16 segments
where 16 parallel 512-FFT cores are used instead of a single 8192-FFT core. Such
division reduces the overall latency time by a similar factor of 16 [101] allowing more
samples to be processed. Figure 3.8 shows the normalized PSD of the received signal,
before applying the FFT, under clear-weather conditions. When FFT is applied to
the time samples, all the noise power is rejected except for the noise remaining in
the FFT bin surrounding the 117.187500-MHz frequency and, therefore, the resulting
average SNR is approximately 40 dB.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
Experiments for channel measurements using the technique described in Sec. 3.4.1
have been conducted in October and November 2011. For all the measurements, the
analog laser transmitter was launched at BH, emitting 60 mW optical power and
transmitting a sinusoid with frequency 117.187500 MHz. The receiver was set to the
analog mode. The channel state h is captured at the rate 101.8 kSa/s where each
sample is represented by 8 bits. Using all the available on-board memory (3 GBytes)
permits continuous recording of the channel state for approximately 8 hours and 47
minutes. Then, a 24-minute idle period is required to move the data from the board
to a PC before capturing new samples.
Coherence Time
To get insight about the channel behaviour during short time scales, Figures 3.9 (a),
(b), (c), and (d) show the channel envelope h during periods of 1 msec, 10 msec, 100
msec, and 1 sec, respectively.
A fundamental timing measure of fading wireless channels in general is the coher-
ence time Tc and its frequency reciprocal the coherence bandwidth Bc ≈ 1/Tc . The
coherence time specifies the time duration wherein two received signals show high
amplitude correlation. In RF channels, the channel time-variation is due to the rel-
ative motion between the transmitter and receiver or the movements of objects in
between resulting in the Doppler spreading effect. In FSO channels, the transmitter
and receiver are usually fixed and the time-variations are due to the atmospheric tur-
bulence along the propagation path. A channel with a large coherence time compared
to the transmitted symbols duration, i.e. Tc >> Ts , is typically termed a slow-fading
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
(a) (b)
150 150
140 140
130 130
120 120
110 110
Intensity
Intensity
100 100
90 90
80 80
70 70
60 60
50 50
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time (msec) Time (msec)
(c) (d)
150 150
140 140
130 130
120 120
110 110
Intensity
Intensity
100 100
90 90
80 80
70 70
60 60
50 50
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Time (sec) Time (sec)
Figure 3.9: Received irradiance fluctuations through different time scales: (a) 1 msec,
(b) 10 msec, (c) 100 msec, (d) 1 sec (samples measured on October 30th , 2011 at 11:32
PM, temperature: 7 ◦ C, wind speed: 7.2 km/hr).
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
channel. In such situations, the channel state is considered constant during the trans-
mission of a sequence of symbols.
To estimate the FSO channel coherence time Tc , the autocovariance, i.e. the
autocorrelation of the mean-removed sequence, is calculated. The mean-removed
channel gain h̃ is given by
N
1 X
h̃ = h − hhi = h − hi , (3.34)
N i=1
where hi is the ith channel sample and N is the total number of samples used for the
calculation. The autocovariance Rh̃h̃ is estimated by
PN −m h̃n+m h̃n
N −1≥m≥0
n=1
Rh̃h̃ (m) = . (3.35)
Rh̃h̃ (−m)
−N + 1 ≤ m < 0
Rh̃h̃ (m)
R̂h̃h̃ (m) = (3.36)
Rh̃h̃ (0)
Figure 3.10 shows R̂h̃h̃ along with the PSD. By considering the coherence time at 5%
of the peak at zero lag, i.e.
R̂h̃h̃ (Tc ) = 0.05, (3.37)
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
(a)
1.2
1
Normalized autocovariance
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
−0.2
−100 −80 −60 −40 −20 0 20 40 60 80 100
Time (msec)
(b)
0
Normalized power spectral density
−10
−20
−30
−40
−50
−60
−70
−80
0 1 2 3 4
10 10 10 10 10
Frequency (Hz)
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
Scintillation Index
2 hh2 i − hhi2
σSI = , (3.38)
hhi2
where
N N
2 1 X 1 X
hh i = (hi − hhi)2 and hhi = hi . (3.39)
N i=1 N i=1
Figures 3.12 (a) and (b) show the corresponding temperature and wind speed,
respectively. Although the weather was clear, small changes in scintillation index
are expected due to changes in temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure,
and changing particulate density. The measured SI is far below unity justifying a
weak turbulence regime. Notice that at night (between 00:00 and 09:00 hrs) the
temperature was in the range of 4 − 7◦ C and the wind speed was less than 2 km/h.
Afterwards, the temperature increased to 11◦ C as did the wind speed between 8 and
16 km/h. In general, higher temperature and wind speeds correspond to stronger
atmospheric turbulence and higher scintillation index.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
(a)
130
125
120
115
Average intensity
110
105
100
95
90
85
80
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Time (min)
(b)
0.08
0.07
0.06
Scintillation index
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Time (min)
Figure 3.11: Irradiance fluctuations during a 14-hour duration: (a) average intensity,
(b) scintillation index (samples measured on October 31st , 2011 starting from 12:00
AM).
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
(a)
12
11
10
9
Temperature ( °C )
3
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Time (min)
(b)
18
16
14
12
Wind speed (km/hr)
10
−2
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Time (min)
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
Small scintillation index values obtained in Subsec. 3.4.2 justify using the log-normal
distribution, given in Eq. (3.20), for channel modelling.
The log-normal fitting can be obtained using the maximum likelihood method [97]
by maximizing the log-likelihood function
2
1 2
ln ĥ + 2 σln ĥ
N
2
X 1
L(σln ĥ
)= ln q exp − 2
, ĥ > 0, hĥi = 1,
2σln
i=1 2πσ 2
ĥ ĥ
ln ĥ
(3.40)
where ĥ is the normalized channel samples given by
h
ĥ = . (3.41)
hhi
2
It can be shown that the log-gain variance σ̂ln ĥ
that maximizes Eq. (3.40) is given
by [98]
N
2 1 X
σ̂ln ĥ
= (ln ĥi − µ̂ln ĥ )2 , (3.42)
N i=1
where
N
1 X
µ̂ln ĥ = ln ĥi . (3.43)
N i=1
The RMSE defined in Eq. (3.33) is used to assess the goodness of fit.
Figures 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, and 3.16 show the histogram of the normalized channel
samples ĥ along with the log-normal fit using maximum likelihood estimation during
clear weather. Figures 3.17 and 3.18 show the channel during foggy and rainy weather,
respectively. For all the figures, the measurement duration is 165 seconds using 224
samples. It is reasonable to assume unchanged weather conditions throughout the
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
165-sec duration and, therefore, the channel statistics are considered fixed. The
2
average channel gain hhi, scintillation index σSI , log-gain standard deviation σ̂ln ĥ ,
and the RMSE are shown along with the weather parameters on each figure.
In clear weather conditions, the good match between the channel histogram and
the log-normal fit is justified by an RMSE on the order of (10−2 ) even at the highest
2
scintillation index value (σSI = 0.13). During a heavy fog condition that started on
November 8th , 2011 around 8:50 PM, there was no received optical power and all the
obtained samples were zero. Figures 3.17 (a) and (b) show the channel state during
the recovery from the fog. Low average intensity values are observed however the
log-normal distribution is still a good fit. Figures 3.18 (a) and (b) show the channel
measurements during a light rain condition (less than 2.5 mm/hr). The scintillation
index is still low however the log-normal distribution can no longer fit with the channel
histogram as indicated by the high RMSE value.
It can be seen that all the obtained scintillation index values are relatively small
(less than unity). Even in very hot days during July, scintillation index never exceeded
0.15. Such reduced scintillation index can be related to the relatively large area of
the receiver that alleviate the effect of the atmospheric turbulence on the received
signal due to the aperture-averaging effect [28].
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st
1
(a) 12:23 AM Nov 1 , 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 113
SI = 0.024008
0
σ = 0.15653
ln
10
RMSE = 0.057903
Probability density
Temperature = 8.8 °C
Wind Speed = 3.6 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
1
(b) 3:36 AM Nov 1st, 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 111
SI = 0.026899
0
σln = 0.16481
10
RMSE = 0.037888
Probability density
Temperature = 8.5 °C
Wind Speed = 6.1 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
Figure 3.13: Example (1) of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit in clear
weather conditions.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
1
(a) 12:51 PM Nov 1st, 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 92
SI = 0.083532
0
σln = 0.29591
10
RMSE = 0.046188
Probability density
Temperature = 13.5 °C
Wind Speed = 6.1 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
1
(b) 5:30 PM Nov 1st, 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 96
SI = 0.004824
0
σln = 0.06954
10
RMSE = 0.039233
Probability density
Temperature = 14.4 °C
Wind Speed = 5 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
Figure 3.14: Example (2) of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit in clear
weather conditions.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
st
1
(a) 11:07 PM Nov 1 , 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 107
SI = 0.13043
0
σln = 0.38958
10
RMSE = 0.064474
Probability density
Temperature = 8.6 °C
Wind Speed = 1.1 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
1
(b) 4:05 AM Nov 2nd, 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 110
SI = 0.041323
0
σln = 0.20641
10
RMSE = 0.050844
Probability density
Temperature = 10.5 °C
Wind Speed = 11.2 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
Figure 3.15: Example (3) of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit in clear
weather conditions.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
nd
1
(a) 9:18 AM Nov 2 , 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 103
SI = 0.005221
0
σln = 0.072283
10
RMSE = 0.070137
Probability density
Temperature = 12.0 °C
Wind Speed = 7.2 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
1
(b) 12:52 PM Nov 2nd, 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 88
SI = 0.053346
0
σln = 0.23445
10
RMSE = 0.045982
Probability density
Temperature = 17.7 °C
Wind Speed = 7.2 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
Figure 3.16: Example (4) of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit in clear
weather conditions.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
1
(a) 6:03 AM Nov 9th, 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 11
SI = 0.0072249
0
σln = 0.085359
10
RMSE = 0.096874
Probability density
Temperature = 9.9 °C
Wind Speed = 6.1 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
th
1
(b) 8:15 AM Nov 9 , 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 25
SI = 0.023173
0
σln = 0.15239
10
RMSE = 0.041002
Probability density
Temperature = 10.6 °C
Wind Speed = 3.6 km/h
Rain level = 0
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
Figure 3.17: Example of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit during re-
covery from heavy fog condition.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
nd
1
(a) 10:04 PM Nov 22 , 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 17
SI = 0.014363
0
σ = 0.13434
ln
10
RMSE = 0.43955
Probability density
Temperature = 1.8 °C
Wind Speed = 30.6 km/h
Rain level = 2.4 mm/hr
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
1
(b) 12:34 AM Nov 23rd, 2011
10
Experiment
LN fit
Average intensity = 64
SI = 0.019024
0
σln = 0.15001
10
RMSE = 0.33407
Probability density
Temperature = 1.9 °C
Wind Speed = 24.46 km/h
Rain level = 0.9 mm/hr
−1
10
−2
10
−3
10
−0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Normalized channel gain
Figure 3.18: Example of channel envelope histogram with log-normal fit during light
rain condition.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
A finite-state Markov chain can be directly applied to model the time-varying be-
haviour of discrete fading communication channels [102–107]. The main concept is to
divide the full range of the received SNR into a finite number of discrete levels. These
levels are arranged in an ascending order where each level is assigned to a state. Each
state can be independently represented by a binary symmetric channel with a certain
error probability that depends on the average SNR in that state. Finally, Markov
transitions are assumed between the channel states.
In a simpler manner, the envelope of the FSO channel, obtained by the channel
measurements, can be modelled using a finite-state Markov chain.
Let S = {s0 , s1 , s2 , ..., sK−1 } denotes a finite set of K states and {Sn }, n =
0, 1, 2, ...., be a constant Markov process with stationary transitions, i.e. the transition
probability is independent of the time index n. Therefore, the transition probability
from state sj to state sk is given by
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
A K × 1 steady state probabilities pk , k ∈ {0, 1, 2, ..., K − 1}, define the steady state
probability vector p. This vector is usually used as the initial state probability vector
required for a complete definition of a Markov chain.
To apply Markov modelling to the FSO channel, the full range of the observed
channel samples is divided into K partitions represented by the finite set of states
S = {s0 , s1 , s2 , ..., sK−1 }. For simplicity, uniform partitioning is considered, i.e.
hmax − hmin
∆= , (3.46)
K
and the mapping from the channel samples h to the states sk is obtained by
The channel gain assigned to every state hk will be defined as the average channel
gain within that state, given by
For a sufficiently large total number of channel samples N , the elements of T can
be estimated using
Nj,k Nj,k
tj,k = Pr(Sn+1 = sk |Sn = sj ) = PK−1 = , j, k ∈ {0, 1, 2, ..., K − 1},
l=0 Nl,j
Nj
(3.49)
where Nj,k is the number of observed transitions from state sj to state sk and Nj is
the total number of times observing the channel envelope at state sj . In a similar
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
Table 3.2: State-transition probability matrix of the Markov chain model when K = 8.
p0 0.0017397
p1 0.0675381
p2 0.3397615
p3 0.4060296
p4 0.1519208
p5 0.0292364
p6 0.0034790
p7 0.0002945
Table 3.3: Steady state probability vector of the Markov chain model when K = 8.
Nk Nk
pk = Pr(Sn = sk ) = PK−1 = , k ∈ {0, 1, 2, ..., K − 1}, (3.50)
l=0 Nl N
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
s0 s1 s2 ………… s7
Figure 3.19: State diagram of the Markov model for the channel envelope when K = 8.
It can be seen from Table 3.2 that, for any state, the probability of transition
tj,k , j 6= k, is always less than the no-transition probability tj,j (which is higher
than 97%) due to the slow-varying nature of the channel. Moreover, these transitions
happen only between adjacent states, i.e. tj,k = 0, ∀|j − k| > 1, which is a typical
property of finite-state Markov models for slow-fading channels [103].
Figure 3.19 illustrates the state diagram of the resulting Markov model when
K = 8.
A more accurate model can be obtained by increasing the number of states. The
full range of the channel samples is divided into K = 64 states. The non-zero elements
of the resulting T and the entries of p are given in Appendix B.
To verify the model strength, the obtained Markov models are simulated to gen-
erate two sets of 224 channel realizations to be compared against the channel mea-
surements. Figure 3.20 shows the histograms of the measurements and the samples
generated by the Markov models. The good match between the resulting channel
distributions is noticed. Table 3.4 shows the average channel gain and scintillation
index obtained from the measurements and simulation.
Figure 3.21 shows the ability of the Markov model to generate channel realizations
with autocovariance that fits well with the autocovariance of the channel measure-
ments when K = 64, however it fails when K = 8.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
−1
10
Experimental
Markov model (K = 64)
Markov model (K = 8)
−2
10
−3
10
Probability density
−4
10
−5
10
−6
10
−7
10
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220
Channel realization
Figure 3.20: The histograms of the channel realizations obtained from the measure-
ments and the realizations generated by the Markov model (samples measured on
November 1st , 2011 at 07:41 AM).
Table 3.4: Comparison between the channel statistics obtained from the measure-
ments and the Markov model.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
1.2
Experimental
Markov model (K = 64)
1 Markov model (K = 8)
Normalized autocovariance
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
−0.2
−100 −80 −60 −40 −20 0 20 40 60 80 100
Time (msec)
Figure 3.21: Normalized autocovariance of the channel realizations obtained from the
measurements and generated by the Markov model.
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Chapter 3. FSO Link Measurement and Modelling
The comparison justifies that the obtained Markov model gives a good approxima-
tion to the channel behaviour and can be used for generating channel realizations for
simulation purposes. The Markov model is simple and computationally-efficient since
it is completely defined by a sparse matrix and a vector. Such a model can be used to
accurately generate different FSO channel realizations with correct distribution and
autocorrelation.
3.6 Conclusions
In this chapter, a practical channel model for IM/DD FSO communications links
was proposed and experimentally verified using the experimental FSO link. The
harmonic distortion, frequency response, noise measurements, and channel loss were
measured. For characterizing the turbulence behaviour of the FSO channel, a new
measurement technique was developed to offer more accuracy and immunity against
the noise inherent in any measurement system. Results indicated a low-turbulence
regime and a good fit with the log-normal distribution under clear and foggy weather
conditions. Finally, a finite-state Markov model was obtained for the channel as
a computationally-efficient tool to generate FSO channel realizations with correct
distribution and autocorrelation for simulation purposes.
In Chapter 4, the experimental setup will be employed for an experimental inves-
tigation of the reliability of OFDM transmission over weak-turbulence FSO channels
by assessing the performance in terms of symbol-error rate.
82
Chapter 4
4.1 Introduction
In this chapter, the reliability of OFDM transmission over FSO channels is experi-
mentally investigated. Reliability is quantified in terms of allowed transmission rates
and resulting symbol-error rate (SER) for a given power budget. A transceiver design
is proposed, implemented, and field-tested over the 1.87-km FSO link. Transmission
rates up to 300 Mbps are achieved. The received signals are analyzed on the sym-
bol level and constellation diagrams. Error rates are presented in clear and rainy
weather conditions. The results demonstrate the potential role of RoFSO systems in
general, and OFDM over FSO particularly, for solving the back-haul and last-mile
connectivity problems.
In Sec. 4.2, a brief review of OFDM systems highlighting their advantages, draw-
backs, and feasibility for transmission over FSO channels is introduced. In Sec. 4.3,
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
three field-experiments over the FSO link are explained in detail where SER is inves-
tigated as the performance metric.
4.2 OFDM
4.2.1 Background
Modulation schemes can be broadly classified into two main categories: single-carrier
transmission and multi-carrier transmission. In single-carrier systems, a “serial”
stream of the information symbols directly modulates a single carrier, usually a sinu-
soid, whose frequency fc is suitable for the targeted communications channel. On the
other hand, in multi-carrier systems, the data stream is split into lower rate “parallel”
streams each modulating its own carrier, usually termed a subcarrier, as shown in
Fig. 4.1.
Mathematically, a baseband multi-carrier signal x(t) can be expressed as [18, 108–
111]
∞ X
X Nsc
x(t) = cki pk (t − iTs ) ej2πfk t , (4.1)
i=−∞ k=1
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
where cki is the i th data symbol at the k th subcarrier and is complex in general, Nsc
is the total number of subcarriers, fk is the frequency of the k th subcarrier, Ts is the
symbol period, and pk (t) is the pulse shaping function of the k th subcarrier. Multi-
carrier transmission divides the wide-band signal into several narrow-band frequency
division multiplexed signals that are transmitted instantaneously. A multi-carrier
system can be regarded as a modulation or multiplexing technique. For multiplex-
ing, subcarriers are modulated by different data symbols from different sources then
transmitted over the same channel targeting corresponding receivers. Multi-carrier
systems waste the bandwidth if the modulated subcarriers have non-overlapping spec-
tra. An efficient bandwidth utilization is achieved by allowing the data signals across
the adjacent subcarriers to overlap in frequency. If the frequency separation between
every two subcarriers satisfies the orthogonality condition,
n
fk − fl = , 1 ≤ l, k ≤ Nsc , (4.2)
Ts
then the overlapped data signals can be resolved at the receiver using a bank of
correlators matched to the subcarriers. Such a modulation or multiplexing technique
is called orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) [112, 113].
OFDM owes its popularity to two major discoveries. The first was the realization
that OFDM modulation and demodulation are mathematically equivalent to the in-
verse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) and the discrete Fourier transform (DFT),
respectively [114]. The second was the introduction of the FFT as an efficient algo-
rithm for calculating the DFT [115].
The baseband OFDM signal x(t) in Eq. (4.1) is complex in general. Ultimately,
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
where s(t) is the real-valued up-converted signal, fc is the carrier frequency, and Re{·}
and Im{·} are the real and imaginary parts of a complex value, respectively.
Hermitian symmetry is another technique to enforce the baseband signal to be
real-valued before transmission. Such a technique is valid even if no frequency up-
conversion is required. A sequence of N complex values ck which satisfy the condition
cN −k = c∗k , 0 ≤ k ≤ N, (4.4)
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
with sampling rates at several giga samples per second at the front end of the trans-
mitters/receivers enable direct up-conversion/down-conversion from/to the digital do-
main instead of conventional analog IQ modulators/demodulators. Such a concept
greatly simplifies the system and chip design by keeping all the signal processing
in the digital domain and eliminating the normal difficulties associated with analog
components in mixed-signal chip design. The transceiver described in Chapter 2 is an
all-digital direct up-conversion/down-conversion system. In such systems, the use of
Hermitian symmetry for composing real-valued OFDM symbols is very efficient from
a computational perspective.
4.2.2 Advantages
The key advantage of OFDM systems is the ability to remove inter-symbol interfer-
ence (ISI) by inserting guard intervals between the data symbols. To obtain zero ISI,
the condition tg > td should be satisfied, where tg is the guard interval width and td
is the channel effective delay time. In dispersive channels, different subcarriers are
delayed by different delays. Such frequency-dependent delay destroys the orthogonal-
ity between the subcarriers resulting in inter-carrier interference (ICI). To keep the
orthogonality, the guard interval is filled with an exact replica taken from the end of
the OFDM symbol waveform, termed as the cyclic prefix (CP). To deal with residual
ISI, OFDM systems may need at most a one-tap equalizer for each subcarrier [110].
Other advantages of OFDM systems include the ability to eliminate narrow-band
interference by suppressing affected subcarriers. The tightness of the spectral compo-
nents of OFDM symbols permits efficient utilization of the available spectrum due to
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
the ability to reduce the guard bands between adjacent channels. In addition, the de-
sign of the spectral filters at the transmitter is greatly simplified. Moreover, the guard
bands can be totally removed between adjacent channels as long as the orthogonal-
ity condition in Eq. (4.2) is maintained between any two subcarriers across different
channels, what is termed orthogonal-band multiplexed OFDM [18]. Orthogonal-band
multiplexed OFDM is typically used in the conducted field experiments described in
Sec. 4.3.
On the other hand, OFDM suffers from two major drawbacks, high peak-to-
average power ratio and sensitivity to frequency and phase offsets.
The OFDM symbol, seen in the time domain, consists of the summation of complex
sinusoids with different frequencies whose amplitude and phases are determined solely
by the corresponding data symbols being transmitted, as seen from Eq. (4.1). Since
information symbols are random in general, there is a possibility that the peaks of
many subcarriers align at a certain instant and add together resulting in large peaks.
The peak-average power ratio (PAPR) is defined by
where σ 2 is the average power. The worst case happens when all the Nsc subcarriers
add together at a certain instant giving the maximum nominal value for the PAPR,
i.e. PAPRmax = Nsc . For example, if Nsc = 128, then PAPRmax = 21 dB. In practice,
no power amplifier can keep linear operation across such a wide dynamic range. In
addition, for all-digital direct up-conversion/down-conversion systems, the dynamic
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
4.2.4 Synchronization
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
(a)
0
10
Transmitted samples
Gaussian fit
−1
10
Probability density function
−2
10
−3
10
−4
10
µ = −0.0015808
σ = 1.2528
−6 −4 −2 0 2 4 6
Normalized transmitted signal amplitude
(b)
100
90
Cumulative distribution function (%)
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
−5 −4 −3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4 5
Normalized amplitude / σ
Figure 4.2: Statistics of the amplitude of a typical OFDM symbol with 40000 sub-
carriers.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
in the transmitted and received signal. In practice, the sampling frequency should
be higher than the factor of two to alleviate the effect of clock jitter, i.e. frequency
deviation from pure periodicity, on the transmitted or received signals. Although
the sampling clock frequencies at the transmitter and receiver need not be equal,
both should be locked to some reference phase and frequency to preserve the timing,
frequency, and phase information. The simplest way to satisfy such condition is the
use of the same sampling frequency at the transmitter and receiver while the receiver
sampling clock being phase-locked to its counterpart at the transmitter.
In the available setup, the sampling clock sources at the transmitter and receiver
are operating in the free-running mode. However, since they have ultra low-noise and
since over-sampling is used by a factor of five, the sampling clock jitter is ignored.
(2) Window synchronization is required to align the start and end of every OFDM
symbol to avoid inter-symbol interference before sampling and applying the FFT.
Window synchronization is relatively simple for OFDM due to longer symbol duration
and the insertion of guard intervals.
For the available setup, to mitigate the absence of timing information at the re-
ceiver, a conceptually simple method is used to recover the timing information using
cross-correlation, as shown in Fig. 4.3. A single OFDM symbol is transmitted and
repeated continuously. At the receiver, the incoming signal is sampled continuously
and buffered for off-line processing on a PC. The duration of the OFDM symbol is de-
termined from the number of samples assuming exactly matched sampling frequencies
at the transmitter and receiver. Since the transmitted signal is a periodic repetition
of the same symbol, capturing the correct number of samples at any instant will en-
sure the inclusion of a full OFDM symbol, however the start and end of the symbol
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
Transmitted samples
Received samples
are unknown. The received time samples are cross-correlated with two replicas of
the “known” transmitted samples, which is equivalent to circular cross-correlation.
Although such a technique is very expensive from a computational perspective, it
guarantees perfect OFDM symbol timing with negligible timing error less than half
the sampling period. Figure 4.4 shows a typical result of the cross-correlation of
an OFDM symbol with duration 262.144 µsec and 40000 subcarriers. The required
timing adjustment is the time shift corresponding to the peak value of the resulting
cross-correlation, i.e. when the transmitted and received sequences coincide in time.
(3) Subcarrier recovery is required to recover the phase information from the sub-
carriers after applying the FFT. Phase ambiguity causes the rotation of the received
symbols constellations as shown in Fig. 4.9. Frequency-dependent phase rotation is
caused by dispersive channels and/or the transmitter or receiver non-ideal frequency
response and its mitigation requires channel estimation.
For the OFDM over FSO experiments discussed in Sec. 4.3, the phase ambiguity of
the subcarriers is mitigated using differential-quadrate phase shift keying (DQPSK)
to modulate the subcarriers instead of QPSK. Therefore, information symbols are
encoded in the phase differences instead of the absolute phases. The major drawback
of DQPSK is the increase in SER due to error propagation.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
9
x 10
12
10
8
Cross−corelation
−2
−4
−600 −400 −200 0 200 400 600
Time shift (µsec)
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
where sDC (t) is the DC-biased unclipped OFDM signal and s(t) is the real-valued
OFDM signal given by Eq. 4.3.
Because of the large PAPR, the value of K may be prohibitively high. This
problem is solved by applying the DC bias after clipping the OFDM signal, i.e.
where s̄DC (t) is the DC-biased clipped OFDM signal and s̄(t) is the real-valued clipped
OFDM signal given by
|A| s(t) > |A|
s̄(t) = s(t) |A| ≥ s(t) > −|A| , (4.8)
−|A| −|A| > s(t)
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
To prove the feasibility of OFDM transmission over FSO channels, many in-field
experiments have been conducted in August, September, and November 2011. Three
experiments are outlined in this section. The first two have been conducted in clear
weather conditions to highlight the improvement in performance achieved by clipping
the OFDM signal. The third experiment is intended to simulate the transmission of
20 terrestrial digital video broadcasting (DVB-T) channels in light rain conditions to
assess the performance against the error rate requirements for the well-established
DVB-T standard.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
No. of channels 20
No. of subcarriers / channel 2000
Channel bandwidth 7.81 MHz
Spacing between channels 0 MHz
Modulation DQPSK (2 bits/symbol)
Total data rate 152.59 M symbol/s (305.18 Mbps)
OFDM symbol duration 256.00 µsec
Cyclic prefix duration 6.14 µsec
Total symbol duration 262.14 µsec
Total transmission bandwidth 156.25 MHz (20 - 176.25 MHz)
Sampling rate 2 GSa/sec
IFFT length 512000
No. of received OFDM symbols 20 × 36864
Transmission duration 9.66 sec
Transmitter
Average transmitted AC power / channel 6.41 µW (−21.93 dBm)
Average total transmitted AC power 128.21 µW (−8.92 dBm)
Laser DC current 167 mA
Average laser AC current 54.6 mA
Average transmitted optical power / channel 3 mW (4.77 dBm)
Average total transmitted optical power 60 mW (17.78 dBm)
Receiver
Average received optical power / channel 0.29 µW (−35.38 dBm)
Average total received optical power 5.90 µW (−22.29 dBm)
Average TIA output power /channel 4.84 nW (−53.15 dBm)
Average total TIA output power 96.78 nW (−40.14 dBm)
Average SER 1.34 × 10−4
Environmental conditions
Time & date 1:07 PM - 3:05 PM, Nov 6th , 2011
Visibility 16 km [99]
Temperature 16.7◦ C
Wind speed (average) 14 km/hr
Absolute pressure 1006.5 hPa
Humidity 42%
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
2000
subcarriers
Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 ……………. Ch. 20
20 MHz 27.81 MHz 176.25 MHz
Figure 4.5: Spectrum of the 20 OFDM channels transmitted in the DC-biased un-
clipped OFDM over FSO experiment.
512000 segments, each with 3.91 kHz bandwidth. Each channel has 2000 DQPSK
symbols which are the complex frequency coefficients that modulate the subcarriers.
These coefficients are arranged along the frequency axis starting from 20 MHz up
to 176.25 MHz, then Hermitian symmetry is applied. A 512000-IFFT is applied to
the entire frequency coefficients to obtain the real-valued time samples. Then 12288
time samples are inserted for the cyclic prefix. The samples are rescaled to occupy
the full range of the on-board DAC (−2048 to 2047), i.e. max {|s(t)|} = DACmax ,
where s(t) is the real-valued unclipped OFDM signal before adding the DC bias and
±DACmax = ±400mV is the full range of the DAC as given in Chapter 2. Finally,
the time samples are downloaded to the board. Figures 4.7 (a) and (b) show the time
signal and associated PSD, respectively.
On the board, the memory is read continuously to feed the DAC which is sampled
at 2 GSa/s. The DAC output is connected to the analog laser driver where DC bias
is added before transmission over the link.
The block diagram of the receiver is shown in Fig. 4.8. After opto-electrical
conversion, the signal is sampled at the rate 2 GSa/s and the resulting samples are
stored on the on-board memory. For this experiment, 6 × 3 = 18 GBytes samples
were buffered, corresponding to 9.66 sec effective transmission time. Every 3 GBytes
samples represent 1.61 sec continuous reception before entering a 24-min idle period
to download the samples to the PC before capturing a new set of samples. The
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
PC (Matlab)
cN-k = ck*
(Hermitian symmetry)
Figure 4.6: Block diagram of the implemented OFDM over FSO transmitter.
9.66-sec time period represents 20 × 36864 = 737280 OFDM symbols across the 20
channels, or equivalently, a total transmission of 1.51 × 109 DQPSK symbols. Timing
information is recovered by the means of the cross-correlation described in Subsec.
4.2.4.
Figures 4.7 (c) and (d) show the received time samples and their PSD. It can be
seen that lower frequency channels have, in general, higher SNR due to the bandwidth
limitations of the system which acts as a low-pass filter as was shown in Chapter 3.
The cyclic prefix is removed from the adjusted time samples before they undergo a
512000-FFT. Finally, the 2000 coefficients of every channel are obtained for DQPSK
demodulation. The received constellations of four channels are shown in Fig. 4.9
illustrating the effect of the atmospheric turbulence and noise on the constellations.
In addition, the phase ambiguity is evident which is largely mitigated by the use of
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
(a) (b)
400 0
200 −20
100 −30
0 −40
−100 −50
−200 −60
−300 −70
−400 −80
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 100 200 300 400 500
Time (µsec) Frequency (MHz)
(c) (d)
15 0
Normalized power spectral density (dB/Hz)
−5
10
−10
Received waveform (mV)
5
−15
0 −20
−25
−5
−30
−10
−35
−15 −40
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 100 200 300 400 500
Time (µsec) Frequency (MHz)
Figure 4.7: DC-biased unclipped OFDM over FSO: (a) transmitted signal, (b) PSD
of the transmitted signal, (c) received signal, (d) PSD of the received signal.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
Transmitted
2 GHz
samples
Ch. 1 2000
15.26 Mbps Parallel DQPSK coefficients
to serial demodulator
Ch. 2 2000
15.26 Mbps Parallel DQPSK coefficients
to serial demodulator . 512000
. FFT
.
.
Ch. 20 2000
15.26 Mbps Parallel DQPSK coefficients
to serial demodulator
Figure 4.8: Block diagram of the implemented OFDM over FSO receiver.
DQPSK.
Figures 4.10 (a) and (b) show the SER per subcarrier and per channel, respectively.
Higher frequency channels have higher error rates due to the low-pass effect of the
system. The average SER across all the channels is 1.34 × 10−4 . The ripples in the
SER in Fig. 4.10 (a) can be related to the corresponding ripples in the received PSD
in Fig. 4.7 (d). Such ripples are due to the non-flat frequency response of the system.
It can be seen that some subcarriers have relatively high error rates, which suggests
adaptive power loading of each subcarrier to improve the performance.
For the above transmission system, there is no difference between visualizing the
transmitted signal as 20 orthogonal-band multiplexed OFDM symbols or just consid-
ering it a single broadband OFDM symbol with 40000 subcarriers.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
Imaginary
Imaginary
0 0
−0.2 −0.2
−0.4 −0.4
−0.6 −0.6
−0.8 −0.8
−1 −1
−1 −0.5 0 0.5 1 −1 −0.5 0 0.5 1
Real Real
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
Imaginary
Imaginary
0 0
−0.2 −0.2
−0.4 −0.4
−0.6 −0.6
−0.8 −0.8
−1 −1
−1 −0.5 0 0.5 1 −1 −0.5 0 0.5 1
Real Real
Figure 4.9: Received constellations for DC-biased unclipped OFDM over FSO.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
0
(a)
10
−1
Symbol error rate / subcarrier
10
−2
10
−3
10
−4
10
−3
(b)
10
SER per channel
Average SER
Symbol error rate / channel
−4
10
−5
10
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
OFDM channels
Figure 4.10: Symbol-error rates for DC-biased unclipped OFDM over FSO measured
over 9.66 sec transmission time under clear weather conditions: (a) per subcarrier,
(b) per channel.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
In the previous experiment, the signal applied to the DAC was not clipped which
limited the electrical power applied to the laser driver and relatively high error rates
were obtained. In this experiment, the OFDM signal is clipped at |A| = 2σ using
Eq. (4.8), where σ is the standard deviation of the unclipped signal. The clipped
signal is rescaled to occupy the full range of the DAC (±2σ = ±400 mV). Clipping
and rescaling permits 8 dB more electrical power to be applied to the laser driver
via the DAC. Transmission specifications for this experiment are highlighted in Table
4.2. The experiment was started on November 6th , 2011 at 01:07 PM under clear
weather conditions (visibility: 16 km, temperature: 15.4◦ C, wind speed: 9 km/hr).
The effective transmission time is 9.66 sec. The transmission bandwidth, number of
channels, and the OFDM symbol parameters are the same as in Table 4.1.
Figure 4.11 (a) shows the time waveform of the clipped signal with the same
vertical scale used in Fig. 4.7 (a). Clipping noise is obvious in the PSD in Fig. 4.11
(b) as compared to the unclipped version in Fig. 4.7 (b).
The received constellation diagrams and resulting SER are shown in Fig. 4.12 and
4.13, respectively. The average SER is 1.23 × 10−6 , two orders in magnitude better
than the unclipped transmission mainly due to the increase in the average received
power. It can be seen that 15 channels have SER less than 10−6 .
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
Transmitter
Clipping threshold ±2σ
Average transmitted AC power / channel 36.8 µW (−14.34 dBm)
Average total transmitted AC power 736 µW (−1.33 dBm)
Average laser AC current 133 mA
Receiver
Average TIA output power /channel 26.59 nW (−45.75 dBm)
Average total TIA output power 531.80 nW (−32.74 dBm)
Average SER 1.23 × 10−6
Environmental conditions
Time & date 3:54 PM - 5:51 PM, Nov 6th , 2011
Visibility 16 km [99]
Temperature 15.4◦ C
Wind speed (average) 9 km/hr
Absolute pressure 1005.8 hPa
Humidity 44%
Table 4.2: Parameters and conditions of the DC-biased clipped OFDM over FSO
experiment (transmission bandwidth, number of channels, and OFDM specifications
are given in Table 4.1.)
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
(a) (b)
400 0
−10
Transmitted waveform (mV)
200
−15
100
−20
0
−25
−100
−30
−200
−35
−300 −40
−400 −45
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0 100 200 300 400 500
Time (µsec) Frequency (MHz)
(c) (d)
20 0
Normalized power spectral density (dB/Hz)
15 −5
10 −10
Received waveform (mV)
5 −15
0 −20
−5 −25
−10 −30
−15 −35
−20 −40
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0 100 200 300 400 500
Time (µsec) Frequency (MHz)
Figure 4.11: DC-biased clipped OFDM over FSO: (a) transmitted signal, (b) PSD of
the transmitted signal, (c) received signal, (d) PSD of the received signal.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
Imaginary
Imaginary
0 0
−0.2 −0.2
−0.4 −0.4
−0.6 −0.6
−0.8 −0.8
−1 −1
−1 −0.5 0 0.5 1 −1 −0.5 0 0.5 1
Real Real
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
Imaginary
Imaginary
0 0
−0.2 −0.2
−0.4 −0.4
−0.6 −0.6
−0.8 −0.8
−1 −1
−1 −0.5 0 0.5 1 −1 −0.5 0 0.5 1
Real Real
Figure 4.12: Received constellations for DC-biased clipped OFDM over FSO.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
0
(a)
10
−1
Symbol error rate / subcarrier
10
−2
10
−3
10
−4
10
−5
(b)
10
SER per channel
Average SER
Symbol error rate / channel
−6
10
−7
10
−8
10
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
OFDM channels
Figure 4.13: Symbol-error rates for DC-biased clipped OFDM over FSO measured
over 9.66 sec transmission time under clear weather conditions: (a) per subcarrier,
(b) per channel.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
Digital video broadcasting - terrestrial (DVB-T) refers to the European standard for
terrestrial digital video broadcasting that was first launched in 1997 [118]. In DVB-T,
MPEG-compressed digital video and audio are transmitted using coded OFDM. Two
modes were defined for the DVB-T standard depending on the number of subcarriers
in the OFDM symbol, the 2k mode and 8k mode. The 2k mode has 1705 subcarriers
with 4 kHz separation while the 8k mode has 6817 subcarriers each is 1 kHz apart.
Typical modulation schemes for the subcarriers are QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM.
DVB-T uses a concatenated forward error correction (FEC) coding system. The
internal code is a convolutional code with rates from 1/2 to 7/8, while the external
one is a Reed-Solomon RS (204, 188) code. The FEC limit for this coding system is
2 × 10−4 which results in a decoded probability of error of 10−11 [119].
In this experiment, the signals transmitted over the FSO link are intended to rep-
resent the outputs of the DVB-T modulator. Transmission specifications and weather
conditions are outlined in Table 4.3. The experiment was started on November 9th ,
2011 at 05:12 PM during a light-rain weather condition (visibility: 13 km, tempera-
ture: 14.2◦ C, wind speed: 8 km/hr, rain level: 1.5 mm/hr). The effective transmission
time is 9.66 sec and the clipping threshold for the OFDM signal is ±2σ.
Figure 4.14 shows the SER across the 20 DVB-T channels. The FEC coding limit
is shown on the same figure for comparison. It is obvious that 19 channels out of 20
satisfy the 2 × 10−4 error threshold.
Because of the limited power budget, the attempt to transmit 20 channels using
higher-order constellations was not successful even under clear weather conditions
since the obtained constellation diagrams were completely unresolvable. However,
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
No. of channels 20
No. of subcarriers / channel 2048
Channel bandwidth 7.61 MHz
Spacing between channels 1.53 MHz
Modulation DQPSK
Data symbols / OFDM symbol / channel 1706
OFDM symbol duration 224 µsec
Guard interval duration 28 µsec
Clipping threshold ±2σ
Total transmission bandwidth 182.86 MHz (20 - 202.86 MHz)
Average total received optical power 4.60 µW (−22.29 dBm)
Average SER 4.82 × 10−5
Environmental conditions
Time & date 5:12 PM - 7:11 PM, Nov 9th , 2011
Visibility 13 km [99]
Temperature 14.2◦ C
Wind speed (average) 8 km/hr
Absolute pressure 989.6 hPa
Humidity 97%
Rain level 1.5 mm/hr
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
0
(a)
10
−1
Symbol error rate / subcarrier
10
−2
10
−3
10
−4
10
−3
(b)
10
−4
10
Symbol error rate / channel
−5
10
−6
10
−7
10
SER per channel
Average SER
FEC coding limit
−8
10
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
DVB−T channels
Figure 4.14: Symbol-error rates for 20 DVB-T channels transmitted over the FSO
link for 9.66 sec during a light-rain condition: (a) per subcarrier, (b) per channel.
110
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
(a) (b)
1 1
0.5 0.5
Imaginary
Imaginary
0 0
−0.5 −0.5
−1 −1
−1 −0.5 0 0.5 1 −1 −0.5 0 0.5 1
Real Real
Figure 4.15: Received constellations for higher-order QAMs under clear weather con-
ditions: (a) 16-QAM, (b) 64-QAM.
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Chapter 4. In-Field Demonstration of OFDM over FSO
4.4 Conclusions
In this chapter, it was shown by in-field experiments that OFDM over FSO is a promis-
ing technology that permits a transparent interface between fiber and RF/coaxial net-
works. To demonstrate its feasibility, several experiments have been conducted over
the 1.87-km FSO link in different weather conditions. Composed DQPSK-OFDM
symbols were transmitted and the received signals were analyzed on the symbol level
to obtain the constellation diagrams and SER. Uncoded transmission at 300 Mbps
was achieved with average SER on the order of 10−6 in clear weather. Good perfor-
mance was also measured during light rain with SER on the order of 10−5 , however,
the link was unusable during heavy rain or fog. These in-field experiments demon-
strate the potential role and limits of OFDM over FSO for back-haul connectivity
and last-mile bottleneck problems.
112
Chapter 5
5.1 Conclusions
Three main contributions have been presented in this thesis. The first one is the de-
velopment of a hardware system that simplifies the interface between signal processing
softwares such as MATLAB and the analog transceiver of McMaster University FSO
link. An FPGA-based digitizer board with 3 GBytes memory and 2 GSa/s DAC
and ADC is employed as the main hardware platform. A system-on-three-FPGAs
is implemented to use the board as a large high-speed samples buffer. This buffer
enables the transmission of MATLAB-composed waveforms over the FSO link as well
as buffering the received samples before downloading to a PC for off-line processing.
The transmitted waveforms can represent a variety of modulation, signalling, and
coding schemes for investigation over the link. In this thesis, the developed system
was employed in FSO channel measurements and OFDM over FSO transmission.
The second contribution is the realization of an FSO channel measurement sys-
tem that uses a new approach. The conventional measurement systems transmit a
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Chapter 5. Conclusions and Future Work
continuos wave optical signal where time samples are captured at the receiver repre-
senting the channel realizations. Such systems suffer from reduced SNR due to noise
corruption. In this thesis, an optical wave modulated by a high-frequency (around
100 MHz) sinusoid is transmitted. At the receiver, the incoming signal is sampled at
2 GSa/s. The captured samples undergo FFT that acts as a notch filter around the
transmitted frequency to reduce the accompanying noise. This technique provides
more immunity to the captured samples against corrupting noise. The SNR of the
received samples is approximately 40 dB under clear weather conditions. Using the
developed system, channel measurements are conducted under a variety of weather
conditions. The widely-accepted log-normal distribution for FSO channels in weak-
turbulence regimes is experimentally verified and good fitting is obtained with the
measurements. Obtained scintillation index values are much less than unity due to
the aperture-averaging effect of the receiver. The coherence time is found to be on the
order of tens of milliseconds showing a slow-fading channel for megabit and gigabit per
second transmissions. A finite-state Markov chain model is derived from the channel
measurements. Numerical simulation results verify the model strength by showing a
good match between the simulated and measured distribution and autocorrelation.
This model can be efficiently used to generate a variety of FSO channel realizations
with accurate scintillation index and autocorrelation for simulation purposes.
The third contribution is the implementation of the first realization of an OFDM
over FSO transmission. In all related previous work, RF signals representing commer-
cial services were being transmitted, and the performance was mainly investigated in
terms of the RF parameters such as carrier-to-noise ratio and channels leakage ratio.
In this work, composed OFDM symbols are transmitted over the FSO link and the
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M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Chapter 5. Conclusions and Future Work
received signals are analyzed on the symbol level to obtain the constellation diagrams
and SER. Transmission rates up to 300 Mbps are achieved with average SER on the
order of 10−6 without coding. These results show the potential role of OFDM over
FSO for integration with RoF networks to fix the back-haul and last-mile connectivity
problems.
The existing setup along with the developed hardware and software systems are a
major step toward the experimental verification of many theoretical results in FSO
communication systems. A variety of developed modulation, signalling, and coding
techniques are waiting for experimental investigation over a real world FSO link. The
implemented buffering system makes such a step straightforward. Research areas
such as M -ary OOK and M -ary PPM, nonuniform signalling and capacity-achieving
distributions, and coded versus un-coded performance have not been experimentally
investigated at the gigabit per second rate.
The developed FSO channel measurement system will be run continuously through-
out the year to produce a large database of channel measurements under different
weather conditions. Such database can be used to build comprehensive statistical
models and empirical formulas that directly relate the weather parameters with the
channel statistics and the performance of the communication link.
The derived finite-state Markov model for the FSO channel is the first step toward
comprehensive simulations using such accurate, simple-to-derive, and computationally-
efficient channel model.
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Chapter 5. Conclusions and Future Work
The addition of a mechanical shutter that covers a portion of the receiver decreas-
ing its effective area may increase the obtained scintillation index values allowing the
investigation of the aperture-averaging effect and channel distributions other than the
log-normal. The gamma-gamma distribution is a good candidate.
At the receiver, there is a gap between the received signal levels (±30 mV) and
the available ADC range (±250 mV). Such a gap wastes the 3 most significant bits
(MSBs) of the ADC which stick to zero and only 7 bits (6 LSBs + the sign bit) are
effectively used. The insertion of a variable-gain, ultra low-noise RF amplifier at the
receiver between the transimpedance stage and the ADC will allow better utilization
of the valuable ADC range to obtain more accurate results by increasing the number
of levels that represent the analog received signal.
The establishment of a synchronization scheme between the transmitter and re-
ceiver is a key requirement for real-time reception. Real-time operation will enable
longterm investigation of the performance of various communication systems over the
FSO channel providing more accurate results and performance measures than the
current buffer-then-process-off-line system.
The developed OFDM over FSO transmission system is a major step for investigat-
ing such potential technology. Much work exists to improve the results by investigat-
ing higher-order QAM constellations and applying adaptive power loading, adaptive
bit loading, and coded transmission. Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes and
punctured codes are good candidates to start with since much theoretical work has
been developed in this area.
116
Appendix A
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M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Appendix A. FSO Link Management Software
Figure A.1: Snapshot (1) from the STC software: terminal status.
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Appendix A. FSO Link Management Software
Analog receiver
Receiver mode gain level
Transmission standard
(digital transmitter)
Figure A.2: Snapshot (2) from the STC software: lasers power levels and receiver
gain level.
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Appendix A. FSO Link Management Software
Terminal received
power (μW)
Terminal received
power chart
Figure A.3: Snapshot (3) from the STC software: received power.
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Appendix A. FSO Link Management Software
121
Appendix B
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M.A.Sc. Thesis - Ayman Mostafa McMaster University - Electrical Engineering
Appendix B. Finite-State Markov Model Parameters for K = 64
Table B.1: Non-zero elements of the state transitions probability matrix of the Markov
chain model when K = 64.
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Appendix B. Finite-State Markov Model Parameters for K = 64
Table B.2: Non-zero elements of the state transitions probability matrix of the Markov
chain model when K = 64 (continue).
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Appendix B. Finite-State Markov Model Parameters for K = 64
Table B.3: Steady state probability vector of the Markov chain model when K = 64.
125
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