International Journal of Latest Research in Scienceand Technology Vol.1,Issue 3 :Page No.202-205 ,September-October (2012) http://www.mnkjournals.com/ijlrst.

htm ISSN (Online):2278-5299

FREE SPACE OPTICAL COMMUNICATION

Sridhara K Asst. Professor, Department of E & C E, PDA College of Engineering, Gulbarga, Karnataka. E-mail: ksridh1@gmail.com
Abstract- Free space optical (FSO) communications is a line- of-sight (LOS) technology that transmits a modulated beam of visible or infrared light through the atmosphere for broadband communications. The concept remains relatively simple: a narrow beam of light which carries whatever optical signal is launched at a transmission station, transmitted through the atmosphere, and subsequently received at the receive station. Therefore, this technique requires a clear line of sight between transmitter and receiver. The transmission through FSO is fast as it offers the communications at the speed of light. FSO is often referred as fiber less optics or optical wireless transmission since it offers the speed of fiber with the flexibility of wireless Keywords-FSO, OFDM, BER, SNR.

I. INTRODUCTION Free-space optical communication (FSO) is an optical communication technology that uses light propagating in free space to transmit data for telecommunications or computer networking. "Free space" means air, outer space, vacuum, or something similar. This contrasts with using solids such as optical fiber cable or an optical transmission line. The technology is useful where the physical connections are impractical due to high costs or other considerations.

Due to its efficient implementation, high spectral and power efficiency and simple frequency-domain equalization, OFDM has been adopted in prominent wired and wireless broadband standards, including HDTV, DSL, and IEEE 802.11 (WiFi) and 802.16 (WiMAX) [4-6]. More recently, OFDM has received much attention as a high-speed fiber transmission technique capable of electronic compensation of optical impairments [7-10]. II. FSO USAGE AND TECHNOLOGIES: Free-space point-to-point optical links can be implemented using infrared laser light, although low-data-rate communication over short distances is possible using LEDs. Infrared Data Association (IrDA) technology is a very simple form of free-space optical communications. Free Space Optics are additionally used for communications between spacecraft. Maximum range for terrestrial links is in the order of 2 to 3 km (1.2 to 1.9 mi), but the stability and quality of the link is highly dependent on atmospheric factors such as rain, fog, dust and heat. Amateur radio operators have achieved significantly farther distances using incoherent sources of light from high-intensity LEDs. However, physical limitations of the equipment used limited bandwidths to about 4 kHz. The high sensitivities required of the detector to cover such distances made the internal capacitance of the photodiode used a dominant factor in the high-impedance amplifier which followed it, thus naturally forming a low-pass filter with a cut- off frequency in the 4 kHz range.

The attractive features of free-space optical (FSO) transmission including plentiful unlicensed bandwidth, as well as rapid and inexpensive setup render it promising for multi- Gb/s applications in next generation networks [1]. However, power attenuation and signal fading due to atmospheric effects limit practically achievable transmission distances and data rates in FSO systems [1]. Several methods from both the optical and radio frequency (RF) wireless communities, including multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) techniques, optical repetition, and coherent detection, have been proposed to augment the FSO ratedistance product [2-4]. However, at Gb/s rates, hardwarebased solutions significantly increase system complexity and cost, reducing a primary advantage of FSO.

Advanced modulation formats, such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), present a cost effective alternative for improving FSO transmission [4-6].

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Sridhara K , International Journal of Latest Research in Science and Technology.

III. E X P E R I M ENTAL SETUP

avalanche photodetector (APD), whose output was fed to a real-time TDS 6154C scope for A/D conversion. At the OFDM demodulator, a sequence of inverse modulatorend operations was performed to recover the original data, with channel equalization (QPSK phase and amplitude correction) implemented through a training sequence of 32 OFDM frames inserted periodically into the input data stream. This post-detection processing was performed offline processing on real-time data samples, generating experimental bit error rate (BER) points. Finally, to compare the FSO OFDM performance with a NRZ OOK system, the OFDM modulator, AWG, RT Scope, and OFDM demodulator were replaced with a 10.8 Gb/s Agilent N4901B pattern generator/ bit error rate tester (BERT). The remainder of the testbed shown in Fig. 1 was unchanged. I V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig 1: The FSO-OFDM Model Fig. 1 illustrates the end-to-end, in-laboratory FSO OFDM setup employed in this experiment. The OFDM modulator, implemented in MATLAB receives N = 256 parallel data streams with an aggregate bit rate of 10 Gb/s, which are subsequently mapped onto N baseband QPSK constellations prior to becoming input into the N-point inverse FFT (IFFT). Following parallel to serial (P/S) conversion and cyclic prefix (CP) insertion, quadrature radio frequency (RF) up-conversion of the digital signal was performed via multiplication with samples of a sinusoidal oscillator at RF frequency fc = 2.5 GHz, such that the double-sideband signal at the OFDM modulator output resided in the 0-5 GHz band. OFDM modulator output was presented to a Tektronix AWG 7102 arbitrary waveform generator (AWG), which performs digital to analog (D/A) conversion and produces the analog output waveform, sOFDM(t), as

where n = 1, 2,.. N is the subcarrier index, k is the discrete time index, an and bn represent the QPSK symbol, T is the OFDM symbol time, and g(t) is the impulse response of the rectangular pulse-shaping filter. The OFDM signal in (1) was used as input to a 10GHz external intensity modulator biased by a 10GHz distributed-feedback (DFB) laser operating at 1550nm, with output optical power set to -1dBm. A fiber pig- tailed collimator with a 4 mrad output divergence angle produced a parallel free-space beam, with power attenuation controlled via a continuous neutral density filter spanning the optical density range 0-2.0. Free-space power attenuation was varied between 3-23 dB, corresponding to measured data for 2-2.5 km links as atmospheric conditions vary from clear sky to wind and/or rain [1-3]. To simulate stochastic power fluctuation due to random atmospheric effects, 100g of solid carbon dioxide CO2 sublimating at ambient room temperature 75 F was used, with sublimation occurring directly along the beam path prior to the collecting lens. Following the collecting aperture, a second fiber pig-tailed collimator focused the received signal on a 10GHz

Fig. 2 illustrates the BER performance of 10Gb/s FSO OFDM transmission using both QPSK and 16 QAM signaling, along with the performance of an equivalent 10Gb/s NRZ OOK system. The range of received power levels in Fig. 2 corresponds to 16-23 dB channel attenuation without stochastic fading, which models a 22.5km FSO link in typical atmospheric conditions [1, 2]. As shown by Fig. 2, at the FEC limit (BER = 10-3) [5], OFDM QPSK outperforms NRZ OOK and OFDM16QAM by approximately 3 dB and 4.5 dB, respectively. These performance gains are attributed to the fact that OFDM-QPSK has 50% higher spectral efficiency in the electrical domain compared to NRZ, yet is not overly sensitive to phase noise, as is the case with OFDM16QAM. Since received power is inversely proportional to the square of link distance in free space [4], the 3 dB sensitivity improvement of OFDM-QPSK over NRZ translates to a 41% increase in link length. It is also noted that the 3dB OFDM- QPSK improvement at the FEC limit results in more graceful BER degradation at low received powers (-21 dBm to -24 dBm) compared to NRZ, indicating OFDM-QPSK resilience to received power fluctuations.

Fig 2 BER comparison of FSO-OFDM and NRZ-OOK To study OFDM-QPSK and NRZ OOK robustness in stochastic fading, Figs. 3 and 4 plot their respective BER performance versus time for both constant -20 dB power

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attenuation (non-fading), as well as -20 dB loss combined with random turbulence induced by CO2 sublimation (fading). Fig. 3 shows that, under OFDM-QPSK, non-fading BER remains well below the FEC limit, despite small fluctuations due to mechanical disturbances that affect pointing accuracy. This is not the case with NRZ-OOK, however (Fig. 4), due to the 3 dB receiver sensitivity penalty at the FEC limit (Fig. 2). The fading data in both Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 exhibit larger variation, since turbulence causes both constructive and destructive interference that randomly decreases and increases instantaneous BER compared to its non-fading value. Such behavior fully agrees with theoretical modeling of FSO fading [3-5], indicating the validity of this experimental approach. Fig. 3 also shows that fading BER under OFDM-QPSK rarely exceeds the FEC limit, indicating OFDM-QPSK robustness, while NRZ OOK (Fig. 4) does not perform as well due to its high sensitivity to variable received power, as also shown in Fig. 2. To complement the findings of Figs. 3 and 4 obtained for a single power attenuation level, Tables 1 and 2 plot the mean non-fading and fading BER for several power attenuations under OFDM-QPSK and NRZ-OOK, respectively. Table 1 indicates that stochastic turbulence (fading) generally increases non-fading BER by approximately one order of magnitude in OFDM-QPSK. As shown in Table 2, the corresponding fading-induced penalty for NRZ OOK can be greater, further confirming the superior resilience of OFDM- QPSK in turbulent atmospheric channels.

Fig 4 BER vs Time FSO NRZ Transmission Table2: BER Statics of FSO NRZ Transmission Attenuation Mean Non fading BER Mean fading BER (dBm)

-20 -20.5 21 22

8.7e-5 1.5e-4 5.8e-4 9.8e-4

6.8e-4 1.0e-3 2.6e-3 8.1e-3

V. CONCLUSION We have presented results of the experimental demonstration 10 Gb/s free-space optical OFDM transmission in the presence of atmospheric effects, including variable power attenuation and signal fading. We have shown that, at the FEC limit (BER = 10-3), OFDM-QPSK has 3 dB higher receiver sensitivity than a 10Gb/s NRZ OOK at equivalent link distance of 2.5 km. This translates to a 41% increase in total achievable distance if OFDM-QPSK is used. Moreover, OFDM-QPSK was shown to be more resilient to stochastic channel fading at low receiver powers, suggesting that it could be an effective solution for next generation FSO systems.

Fig 3 BER vs Time FSO OFDM Transmission

REFERENCES
[1] H. Willebrand and B.S. Ghuman, Free Space Optics: Enabling Optical Connectivity in Today's Networks. Sams Publishing, 2002.

Table1: BER Statics of FSO OFDM Transmission

Attenuation (dBm) Mean Non fading BER Mean fading BER

[2] M.-C. Jeong, J.-S. Lee, S.-Y. Kim, S.-W. Namgung, J.-H. Lee, M.-Y. Cho, S.-W. Huh, Y.-S. Ahn, J.-W. Cho, and J.-free space transmission over 3.4 km using an optical repeater. 15, 171-173 (2003). [3] Etty J. Lee, Student Member, IEEE, and Vincent W. S. Chan, Optical Communication Over the Clear Turbulent Atmospheric Channel Using Diversity.IEEE.sel ,areas ,22,9, (2004). [4] S. L. Jansen et al, 16x52.5-Gb/s 50-GHz spaced, POLMUX-CO- OFDM transmission over 4,160-km of SSMF enabled by MIMO Processing," Proc. ECOC 2007, PD 1.3 [5] Ivan B. Djordjevic. LDPC-Coded Optical Communication over the Atmospheric Turbulence Channel,optic express,15,10,6336-6350, (2007).

-20 -20.5 21 22

4.7e-3 7.6e-3 2.1e-2 3.6e-2

1.0e-2 1.0e-1 1.6e-1 3.1e-1

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Sridhara K , International Journal of Latest Research in Science and Technology. Optical Communications, Radio Engineering, VOL. 19, NO. 2, JUNE 2010 ,pages 203-212 [6] O. Gonza lez et al. OFDM over indoor wireless optical channel, Proc. IEE Optoelectron. 152, 4, 199-204.(2005). [12]Neda Cvijetic, Dayou Qian, Ting Wang, Free-Space Optical Transmission using OFDM, OFC/NFOEC 2008. [7] Arthur James Lowery, Liang Du and Jean Armstrong.Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing for Adaptive .proc. OFC 2006.PD P36. [13]Abdelmoula Bekkali, Chedlia Ben Naila, Kamugisha Kazaura, Kazuhiko Wakamori, and Mitsuji Matsumoto, Transmission Analysis of [8] Neda Cvijetic, Lei Xu, Ting Wang.Adaptive PMD Compensation using OFDM-Based Wireless Services Over Turbulent Radio-on-FSO Links OFDM in Long-Haul 10Gb/s DWDM Systems proc. OFC 2007. Modeled by GammaGamma Distribution, IEEE Photonics Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, June 2010, pp. 510- 520 [9] W. Shieh, X. Yi, and Y. Tang. Experimental Demonstration of [14] Fenq-Lin Jenq, Tang-Jen Liu. An AC LED Smart Lighting System Transmission of Coherent Optical OFDM Systems, proc. OFC 2007. with Visible Light Time-Division Multiplexing Free Space Optical Communication.2011 [10] S. L. Jansen et al, 16x52.5-Gb/s 50-GHz spaced, POLMUX-COOFDM transmission over 4,160-km of SSMF enabled by MIMO [15]Zhao Li, Lei Zhi-yong, Ren An-hu, Ke Xi-zheng2,Wu Ying-hui. Processing," Proc. ECOC 2007, PD 1.3. Research on Light Polarization FSO-OFDM System,IEEE,2011 [11]Hennes Henniger, Otakar Wilfert, An Introduction to Free-space

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