Free Space Optical Communication

Picture: http://www.cablefreesolutions.com/index.htm
April 2003 Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay 1

Wireless Optics?
Picture: http://www.cablefreesolutions.com/index.htm

Fiber replaced by free space

o Channel characteristics not in control o Transmitter and Receiver essentially the same

Indoor and Outdoor implementations differ Three basic configurations

o Line of Sight (max. bandwidth) o Directed -- Non-Line of Sight Hybrid o Non directed -- Non-Line of Sight Diffused (min. bandwidth)

Thus Wireless need not imply Roaming

April 2003 Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay 2

Indoor links
Picture: Optical Wireless- The Promise and Reality , Heatly and Neild

Interference
o Incandescent Light (~ 2800 K) Max. interference o Sunlight (~ 6000 K) o Fluorescent lamps

Attenuation
o Free Space Loss (due to beam divergence) -- important o Atmospheric Loss (not much indoors)

Eye Safety Most Important

o Should be class I safe (< 0.5 mW, 880 nm, LASER) o Restricts system power (though LEDs can be used at higher powers, but Bandwidth limited)

April 2003

Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay

Outdoor links
Picture: http://www.cablefreesolutions.com/imagelib21.htm

Attenuation Most Important

o Atmospheric Loss (varies with weather)

0.2 dB/km in exceptionally clear weather 300 dB/km in very dense fog Restricts the range (~500m in most commercial systems) May need low capacity back-up RF links

o Free Space Loss (due to beam divergence) Scintillation Noise (atmospheric turbulence induced intensity fluctuations) speckled pattern

Alignment Issues Line of sight Interference

o Sunlight (~ 6000 K)

April 2003

Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay

Attenuation :: Outdoor links

PR= PT . Areceiver . e PR ~ PT e .R
.R/(Div-range)2

Free Space losses beam divergence Atmospheric losses exponential term dominates
o Scattering + Absorption o Scattering dominates in

Does Attenuation depend on wavelength?

April 2003 Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay 5

Attenuation ::

Scattering

Depends on particle size

Size parameter = 2 r/ r varies with atmospheric composition

r << => ~ -4 Rayleigh Scattering r ~ => ~ -1.6 to 0 Mie Scattering r >> => ~ 0 Geometric Scattering
Belief that 1550 nm is less attenuated than 785 nm in fog.

Thus, larger => lower attenuation Does this apply always?

April 2003

Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay

Attenuation ::
Type
Air Molecules Haze Particle Fog Particle Rain Snow Hail

Scattering
785 nm

contd
1550 nm

Radius (m)
0.0001 0.01-1 1 to 20 100 to 10000 1000 to 5000 5000 to 50000

(size paremeter)
0.0008 0.08-8 8 to 160 800 to 80000 8000 to 400000 40000 to 800000

(size paremeter)
0.0004 0.04-4 4 to 80 400-400000 4000 to 20000 20000 to 400000

Table: Comparison of beam propagation in haze and fog, Kim, McArthur and Koreevar

The authors, studied the FOGGY weather conditions which were showing a discrepancy between analytical and empirical data.
April 2003 Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay 7

Attenuation ::

= (3.91/V) x (/550 nm)-q

Scattering

contd

The particle size distribution is difficult to obtain. so we express in terms of Visibility (V)
V= visibility (km) light falls off to 2% of initial value q= Size distribution of scattering particles Earlier = 1.6 (V>50 km) = 0.585 V1/3 = 1.3 (6 km <V< 50 km) (V < 6 km) = 0.16 V+0.34 (1 km <V< 6 km) Haze = V - 0.5 (0.5 km <V< 1 km) Mist = 0 ( V < 0.5 km) Fog

The authors, proposed a new wavelength dependence through Mie Scattering calculations
April 2003 Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay 8

Scintillation Noise
Inhomogenities in Temp. and Pressure
Variations in Refractive Index along the transmission path Speckled pattern (both in time and space) at the receiver
Can be removed by time and space averaging. But problems arise with restrictions on size of receiver and high bit rates.
April 2003 Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay 9

Some images

Pictures: http://www.cablefreesolutions.com/imagelib.htm
April 2003 Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay 10

Web Resources

www.freespaceoptic.com www.cablefreesolutions.com/casestudies.htm www.engalco.co.uk/fso_report.htm www.fiberwork.com.br/site/english/fso_e.htm www.ieeexplore.ieee.org

April 2003

Mohit Garg, IIT Bombay

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