Channel Modeling

The physical mechanism of the atmosphere at the optical wavelengths can

be described by probabilistic channel models.

Input/Output Model of Wireless Optical Channel

In ideal conditions, the received power decreases as inverse of the
distance.
Due to atmosphere, power decays considerably faster due to absorption,
scattering and turbulence.
Instead of rigorous EM analysis, a model of the physical environment
with the fewest number of parameters will be preferred.

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Constraints of Optical Intensity Channel
In the transmitter with LED or LD, linear portion of the characteristics
is used for linear conversion between the input drive current, x(t) and
the output optical power, Pt(t).
The light detector is a square law device which integrates the square of
the amplitude of the EM radiation and generate the detector current.
Schematic of optical wireless system is shown below [Chadha 2012]

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The electro-optical conversion at the transmitter can be modeled as
Amp
Pt (t )  mx(t )
-

↳
gain (W/A)
optical
-

W
where m is the optical gain of the device with units of W/A.

At the receiver, due to linear opto-electronic conversion of the received

optical power signal Pr(t) to the electrical photocurrent y(t) is modeled as

-> A/W

& attenuation coefficient

where α0(λ,t) depends upon the link length, characteristics of channel and
optics used, R0 is the detector responsivity in A/W.

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 The value of m and R0 are constant, and we can assume their product to
be unity.
The constraints on the power level leads to non-negativity of constraint
on channel input as

①firstconstraints
The second constraint is that the average transmitted optical power Pt is
limited to P (average power fixed due to eye-safety consideration)

② 2nd constraint: =

mm Jnctds
Linear Time-Varying System Model of the Channel

Let αi(λ,t) be the overall attenuation of the path i from the transmitter to
the receiver at optical wavelength λ and τi(λ,t) their respective delay.
Assume that αi(λ,t) and τi(λ,t) do not depend on λ, but are rather
constant over the waveband once the transmission waveband is selected.
4
 I pRx
1
T v-> y(t) x(X,A)x(t) y(t)52i(*)x(t
8(t 7i))
- -
=
=

path Zvi (X, t)

ith

Y y(t) 5xix(t
ii)
-
-
- =

850nm bi(X,t)

multiplepath y(t) 36i(X,t)x(t 6(X,t))

-

particular window
For
Attenuation and propagation delay are slowly varying function of
wavelength so the assumption is valid.
attenuation of
its
path
By superposition principle,
<
↳ delay of its
path
The impulse response of the baseband equivalent optical channel is

In special case, when the transmitter, receiver and the environment are
all stationary i.e., αi(t) and τi(t) are independent of time. The time-
invariant channel impulse response is

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The frequency response of the channel is obtained by its Fourier
Transform (FT) and is given by

It is usually appropriate to model the channel h(t) H(f) as fixed since it
changes only when the transmitter or receiver in the terrestrial link or
the objects for the indoor system are moved by tens of centimeters.

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Channel Transfer Function in Optical Domain
 At the optical intensity level, the Optical Transfer Function (OTF) is
defined in terms of spatial frequency (lines per unit width).
 Channel OTF is normalized FT of the average light intensity distribution
in the image plane as caused by a point object at the object plane.
 The OTF model is as shown below [Chadha 2012]

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The OTF is defined as follows :

where
S(fx, fy): 2-D FT function of the Point Spreading Function s(x’,y’)
S(0, 0): Maximum value of OTF
(fx , fy): Spatial frequencies in the x and y direction

The OTF can be expressed in terms of Modulation Transfer Function

(MTF) and Phase Transfer function (PTF) and is given as

MTF is responsible for the size of Rx image in terms of spatial coordi-

nates and PTF determines position as well as orientation of Rx image. 8