Optical wireless communication for

Outdoor terrestrial environment

SHASHWAT S DASGUPTA(2017A8PS0414P)

Abstract – In the past few years, Free high bandwidth, cheap expenses and
Space Opticalcommunication has gained accessibility. The bandwidth offered by OCW is
significant importance in terrestrial about 10,000 times higher than the highest
applications and wireless frequencies used by RF technology.
communication.The performance of FSO Furthermore, more t independent data channels
system is highly influenced by atmospheric can be grouped into the air on a single optical
conditions making them highly susceptible beam using wavelength division multiplexing
to degrading effects of atmospheric (WDM)in unguided mode.
turbulence and pointing errors. This
II. BLOCK DIAGRAM FOR FSO
review paper aims to cover basics of
COMMUNICATION Block diagra
optical wireless such as its advantages,
applications and challenges along with The following figure shows the parts that
various channel models and modulation comprise a free space optical communication
schemes employed in FSO are discussed. system. It has a transmitter and a receiver and in
The paper also looks at various between them an atmospheric channel
applications of OWC on land. OWC faces
many challenges in its implementation
because of high loss in the outdoor
environment due to harsh weather
conditions, maintaining line of sight link
due to sway and vibration in the building,
and eye safety and multipath effect in the
indoor environment. Many solutions have
been presented to overcome these
challenges. This paper will review these
challenges and discuss solutions for indoor
and outdoor environments.

Introduction

Optical wireless communications is becoming a

better medium to optical fiber, and radio
frequency (RF) communications, because of its
 The information that is generated by source disturbances, like snow and especially rain,
has to be communicated over the optical are less of a problem for FSO than fog.
wireless system.The modulator, which uses
Absorption is caused primarily by carbon
different modulation techniques, modulates
dioxide and steam in the air along the
the data for transmission. The optical light
transmission path. Their presence is a
source can be of two types- LED or (LD).
function of both humidity and altitude. This
Laser is used because of the high pointedness
causes a decrease in the attenuation of the
and coherence that it‟s beam exhibits. The
FSO beam and directly affects the
transmitter and receiver are configured to
availability of a system. However, the use of
deliver and optical signals are received
appropriate power based on atmospheric
propagating in free space. Transmitter
conditions, and the use of spatial
converts incoming electrical signal from
diversityhelps maintain the required level of
primary circuit into optical form to be
network availability. Scattering is caused
transmitted over the atmospheric channel.
when the wavelength collides with the
Atmospheric channel through which the
scatterer.
optical beam passes throws a lot of
challenges for the transmitted signal. Thus
the signal has to be properly modulated
before transmission. Receiver side contains a
photo detector which converts the received
optical signal to electrical form again which
can then be amplified or processed.
Modulation and demodulation of the signal
takes place in electrical form . Received
signal is demodulated and produced in the
desired form to the destination

SCATTERING OF SIGNALS )
Scattering is caused when the wavelength
collides with the scatterer. The physical size
of the scatterer determines the type of
scattering. When the scatterer is smaller than
the wavelength, this is known as Rayleigh
scattering. When the size is comparable, this
is known as MiE scattering. In scattering
(unlike absorption), no energy is lost, only a
directional redistribution of energy that may
have significant reduction in beam intensity
for longer distances. The most common
scattering element is fog. Other atmospheric
APPLICATIONS
The two major applications are as follows:
1)FSO communication link is currently in
use for many services at many places to
enable communication. It ensures last mile
access . It cut down on the costs required to
install and repair cables but still offers high
speed link. It, in fact is used to bypass local-
loop systems of other kinds of networks.
Also, these systems are easily installable.
This feature enables them to connect two or
more LAN in a building. It can also serve as
a backup link in case of failure of
transmission via optical fibers due to some
reasons. It can be used in extending the fiber
rings of an existing metropolitan area.
2) It can also be used to complete
Synchronous Optical Network (SONET)
rings . It is useful in transporting the traffic
originating through cellular telephone from
antenna towers back to the Public Switched
Telephone Network (PSTN) with higher
speed and higher data rate since the speed of
transmission would increase. FSO is
beneficial in WAN where it supports high
speed data services for mobile users and
small satellite terminals acts as a backbone
for high speed network. It can be used to
communicate between point-topoint links,
for example, two buildings, two ships, and
point-to-multipoint links,.
CHALLENGES FACED IN FSO
As the medium for transmission in FSO is
free space, there are many challenges faced in
implementing the free space optical system.
They include atmospheric challenges due to
change in various weather conditions as well
as many others. Atmospheric turbulence
refers to a random phenomenon that causes
redistribution of the signal energy which
results from the inconsistency in the
refractive indices of the atmosphere. It results
in intensity fluctuations and degradation of
the optical beam The size of the turbulence
effect can cause different effects. If the size
of the turbulence cell is of larger diameter
than optical beam then beam wander would
be the dominant effect. Beam wander is the
displacement of the optical beam spot
rapidly. If size of turbulence cell is of smaller
diameter than optical beam then the intensity
fluctuation or scintillation of the optical beam
is dominant.
 SOLUTION

A hybrid of FSO and RF can be used to

tackle the attenuation problems.

Outdoor optical wireless communication has

become a viable option to short- haul fiber
link for distances of three Km or less and an
alternative technology to last mile access.
but the atmospheric attenuation of optical
signals and unpredictability of weather
conditions limits the distance and affects
link availability. The link availability
requirement for enterprise systems is
generally greater than 99 percent. To obtain
such link availability a hybrid FSO/RF link
can be used where RF link serves as a low-
bandwidth backup to the primary optical
link and can provide a carrier grade wireless
system capable of ranges greater than 1 Km
in all weather conditions

Conclusion
Optical wireless communication is
worthy contender to replace dwindling
RF band communication for high speed
and low cost applications.Even though
atmospheric conditions prove to be a
hurdle but with a hybrid of RF+OCW can
be used to mitigate the attenuation; with
relatively low or no turbulence, BPSK
projects minimum bit error rate and is the
best of all techniques considered as per
the application..OCW in with different
modulation techniques, the parameters
are varied and optimised.OCW interrestrial
environment has been deeply influenced TrainCommunications
by scattering . R.Paudel1,StudentMember,IEEE,Z.Ghas
semlooy1,SeniorMember,IEEE,H.LeMin
h1,Member,IEEE,
S.Rajbhandari1,Member,IEEE,andE.Lei
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