Wind influence on rate-adaptive transmission techniques in free space optical communications

Abstract

Free-space optical communication systems represent one of the most promising approaches for addressing the emerging broadband access market and its "last mile" bottleneck. However, atmospheric turbulence may cause fluctuation in both intensity and phase of the received light signal, impairing the link performance. In this paper, a novel model for the atmosphere as an optical communication channel is presented, considering not only the turbulence effects due to the refractive index variation but also the negative effect of the wind velocity. Additionally, the very good performance of a simple rate-adaptive transmission scheme based on the use of variable silence periods and OOK formats with memory, previously proposed in indoor unguided optical links by the authors, is also corroborated in free-space optical links, showing a greater robustness to adverse conditions of turbulence and wind velocity. © 2006 IEEE.

Antonio García-Zambrana

Professor of Telecommunications Engineering

Professor at the University of Málaga working on wireless optical communications, free-space optical links, underwater optical wireless communications, visible light communications, and FPGA/RFSoC-based real-time prototyping.

Antonio Puerta-Notario

Emeritus Professor / Senior Researcher

Emeritus Professor at the University of Málaga with a long-standing research activity in signal theory, optical wireless communications, visible light communications, free-space optical links and communication system modelling.