Review on the Application and Future challenges of Optical Free Space

Moata Haile Birdida Dr. RP. Singh (Assistant Professor)

Haramaya University Haramaya University
Haramaya Institute of Technology Haramaya Institute of Technology
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
ID NO: PGP/880/15

Abstract
Transceivers in an FSO communication system must be close enough to one another line of sight (LOS) in order for
an optical signal to be successfully sent. A medium may be made of air, empty space, or a vacuum. This technique
makes it possible to communicate effectively over closer distances and at a reduced cost. Just two advantages of FSO
are itslarge bandwidth and lack of a spectrum license. The transmission in FSO is dependent on the medium because
of elements such as the presence of foreign components including rain, fog, and haze, as well as physical barriers,
scattering, and air turbulence. The various studies on weather related problems and the methods applied to lessen
their effects are reviewed in this paper.
1. Introduction
Free space optics (FSO) is an optical communication unlike microwave bands, it does not require a license
technology that makes it possible to link by leveraging data to utilize the FSO.
transmission through the movement of light in free space. It (b) Storage Area Network (SAN): A SAN can be
is not required to use the optical fiber cable. Optical beams created using FSO links. It is a network with a
are sent over open air as opposed to the glass fiber OFC reputation for offering access to data storage that is
cores, which is the only difference between FSO and OFC consolidated at the block level [2].
(optical fiber cable) networks. A full duplex (bidirectional) (c) Last-mile access: to lay cables of users in the last
FSO system uses optical transceivers at both ends. FSO mile is very costly for service providers as the cost of
communication technology is not brand-new. Even though digging to lay fiber is so high and it would make sense
it's older dating from the eighth century it's more modern to lay as much fiber as possible. FSO can be used to
now. Full duplex (bidirectional) connectivity for data, solve such problem by implementing it in the last mile
phone, and video communication at a top data rate of 10 along with other networks.
Gbps is made possible by the LOS (line of sight)
technology known as FSO. [1] (d) Enterprise connectivity: It is simple to setup FSO
systems. Due to this functionality, it can be used to
Characteristics of effective FSO systems are: connect two houses or other properties using LAN
segments [3].
(A) FSO systems should be able to operate at higher power
levels over longer distances. (e) Fiber backup: In the case that a fiber link cannot transfer
data, FSO can also be used to provide a backup link [3].
(B) For high speed FSO systems, high speed modulation is (f) Metro-network extensions: This method can be used to
essential. extend the fiber rings of a current metropolitan area. The
(C) An overall system design should have a modest footprint FSO system can be set up more rapidly and additional
and low power consumption due to maintenance requirements. networks and core equipment can be easily integrated. It
can also be used to complete SONET rings [3].
FSO systems must to be able to function in a wide range of (g) Backhaul: It can be useful for transferring cellular phone
temperatures, and performance deterioration for outdoor traffic from antenna towers back to the PSTN at a high
systems ought to be minimal. data rate. The speed of transmission would increase
[3].
2. Applications
Several services are presently provided worldwide using
FSO communication links. These are fully explained below:
(a) Outdoor wireless access: It can be used for
communication by wireless service providers, and
1
(h) Service acceleration: While the customer's fibre atmosphere. Here is a brief description of a few of these
infrastructure is being deployed, it can be used to restrictions:
provide immediate service [3]. (a) Physical obstructions: Flying birds, trees, and tall
(i) Bridging WAN Access: FSO supports high-speed buildings can momentarily block a single beam
when they are in the line of sight (LOS) of
data services for mobile users and tiny satellite
transmission of the FSO system [1]. Due to heat
terminals and acts as the backbone for high-speed
rising from the earth and man-made drivers like
trunking networks, both of which contribute to the heating pipes, scintillation would cause temperature
opening of WAN [4]. differences between various air packets. These
(j) It is applicable to both short- and long-range temperature changes can cause the signal's
communication between point-to-point links, such as amplitude to fluctuate, which results in "image
those between two ships or buildings, and point-to- dancing" at the FSO receiving end. Light Pointe's
multipoint links, such those between an airplane and the distinctive multibeam approach addresses the
ground or a satellite and the earth.[5] impact of scintillation [1].
(b) Geometric losses: Geometric losses, also referred to
3. Merits as optical beam attenuation, occur as a result of the
beam spreading, which reduces the signal's power
(a) Free space optics is a flexible network that
as it moves from the transmitter to the receiver [4].
provides quicker speed than broadband.[1]
(c) Absorption: Absorption is caused by water
(b) Installation is straightforward and takes less than 30
minutes at typical locations [1]. molecules suspended in the earth's atmosphere.
These particles would absorb the energy of the
(c) The initial outlay is incredibly minimal [3].
photons. The availability of the transmission and the
(d) It is simple to use the deployment system. There is optical beam's power density in an FSO system are
no requirement for spectrum licensing or frequency directly impacted by absorption. Carbon dioxide can
coordination between users, as there was with also cause signal absorption [4].
previous radio and microwave systems [4].
(d) Atmospheric turbulence: The structure of the
(e) Since the system relies on line of sight, there is no
surroundings and the weather affect atmospheric
need to change the security system [3].
disturbance. The issue was exacerbated by
(f) It is possible to achieve high data speeds that are convection and wind, which mixed air parcels of
comparable to those of optical fiber cables, but different temperatures.
error rates are substantially lower and an endless
number of FSO lines may be constructed in a
given area thanks to the incredibly thin laser
beam [5].
(g) There is a chance of radio frequency interference
[3].
(h) Electromagnetic or radio-magnetic interference
cannot affect the transmission via an FSO link
[5].
(i) FSO offers dense spatial reuse.[2]
These advantages show how important the FSO system is
in comparison to other communication systems. Table 1
presents a comparison of various systems based on a
number of parameters.

4. Limitations
Free space optics offers a variety of advantages that are
easily accessible. Environmental challenges, however,
cannot be completely avoided because air acts as the FSO
transmission medium and the light must pass through it. The
troposphere's zones were where most atmospheric events
took place [1].
Figure 1 depicts the impact of these limitations on the
 TABLe 1: Comparison of FSO with different communication
systems.
Parameters FSO Optical fiber Microwave radio Coaxial cable
Installation Moderate Difficult Difficult Moderate
Data rate Gbps Independent Mbps Mbps
Security Good Very good Poor Good
Connectivity P2P, P2MP short and long reach P2P, P2MP short and long reach P2P short reach Multidrop short reach
Maintenance Low Low Low Moderate
Spectrum license Not required Required Required Required

Modulation: OOK, PPM, and PAM

Coding: block, convolution

Fog
MIMO

↓↑ data ↑↓
↓↑ data ↑↓

FSO/RF Scintillation

Figure 1: Atmospheric effects on FSO system [1].

(e) Atmospheric attenuation: Normally, haze and fog There are types of Atmospheric attenuation:
result in atmospheric attenuation. Additionally, dust
and rain play a role. Contrary to popular belief, air (1) Rayleigh scattering which is known as molecule
attenuation is not wavelength dependent. scattering.
Wavelength affects haze. In hazy weather (2) Mie scattering which is known as aerosol
conditions, attenuation at 1550 nm is lower than at scattering.
other wavelengths. Wavelength independence (3) Nonselective scattering which is known as geo-
governs attenuation in a foggy environment. [4] metric scattering.

(f) Scattering: When an optical beam and a scatter The type of scattering depends upon the physical size of
clash, scattering phenomena occur. It is a the scatter [1]:
wavelength-dependent phenomena in which the
optical beam's energy remains constant. However, (i) When it is smaller than the size of wavelength,
only directional redistribution of optical energy Rayleigh scattering.
occurs, which results in a decrease in beam intensity (ii) When the size of the scatter is comparable to the
across greater distances. wavelength, Mie scattering.
(iii) When it is much larger than the size of wavelength,
nonselective scattering.

Atmospheric Weather Conditions

A FSO link uses the atmosphere as its transmission medium. Its
ability to attenuate depends on a number of factors. Attenuation
is primarily caused by weather. In order to get the prior
knowledge of attenuation, the place in which a link is being
constructed must have certain specified weather conditions; for
instance, the two main weather conditions in temperate climates
are fog and heavy snowfall. Heavy rain and haze are the two
main weather variables that affect the availability of FSO links in
tropical areas [6]. The following describes a few of the weather
situations.

3
 supported by experimental findings. The results of an
(a) Fog: Visible light is significantly attenuated by fog. The empirical model used to compare experimental data for the
obstruction brought on by fog causes an optical beam of light continuous attenuation spectrum of fog and smoke situations
to be absorbed, scattered, and reflected. The majority of fog- reveal that the disambiguation is linearly decreasing [4].
related scattering, also known as Mie scattering, involves Another study examines the issue of fog's dependence on
wavelength.
increasing the transmitted power.[1] In rain based study, a correlation of precipitation rates
with rain attenuation is studied on the short wavelength
(b) Rain: Rainfall-related attenuation, which is a nonselective (785 nm). The four-existing-model rain attenuation is utilized
scattering, occurs. Attenuation of this kind is wavelength to find the result and measured data is compared with
independent. Rain has the capacity to create laser delivery calculated results to determine the turbulence model [6]. The
fluctuation effects. The amount of rain affects how visible the effects of rain intensity variation on its attenuation prediction
FSO system is. When it rains heavily, water droplets have a are the focus of another study. The analysis of 7 reduction
solid composition, which can either change the characteristics format models is done to study the FSO link with rain
intensity variations. Six of the models have a reduction factor
of an optical beam or hinder its passage since it is absorbed, value of unity where one model has 0.7. It reduces the effective
scattered, and reflected [6].Haze particles can stay longer path length of FSO link. Rainfall distribution for longer path
time in the air and lead to the atmospheric attenuation. So, seems to be more widespread in case of low rain rate and
attenuation values depend upon the visibility level at that more concentrated in case higher rain rate [5].
time. There are two ways to gather information about
attenuation for checking the performance of FSO system: 6. Various Techniques to Enhance System
first, by installing system temporary at the site and check Performance
its performance and, second, by using Kim and Kruse Various techniques to enhance the system performance are
model [6]. being introduced. Some of these techniques are discussed
below in detail and their comparison is done in the following
(c) Smoke. It is generated by the combustion of different section.
substances like carbon, glycerol, and household emission. It
affects the visibility of transmission medium [5]. (a) Performance of SAC OCDMA Based FSO System. Spectral
Amplitude Coding Optical Code Division Multiple Access
(d) Sandstorms. Sandstorms are the well-known problem in technique is used in FSO system by the researchers. This
outdoor link communication. These can be characterized by multiplexing scheme has several advantages like
two ways: first, the size of the wind particles which depends flexibility of channel allocation, asynchronously operative
on the soil texture and, second, necessary wind speed in order ability, privacy enhancement, and network capacity
to blow the particles up during a minimum period of time increment. KS (Khazani-Syed) codes are used with SDD
[6]. (spectral direct decoding) technique. An optical external
modulator (OEM) is used to modulate the code sequence
(e) Clouds. Cloud layers are main part of earth atmosphere. with data. The data is an independent unipolar digital
The formation of clouds is done by the condensation or signal. Mach-Zehnder Modulator (MZM) is used and
deposition of water above earth’s surface. It can completely combination of modulated code sequences is transmitted
block the fractions of optical beam transmitted from earth through the FSO link and these sequences are separated by
to the space. The attenuation caused by clouds is difficult to an optical splitter at the receiver end. The overlapping chips
calculate because of the diversity and inhomogeneity of the are discarded to avoid the interference at receiver end and
cloud particles [3]. decoder will only filter the non-overlapping chips. Optical
band pass filters serve the purpose of encoders and
(f) Snow. Snow has larger particles which causes the geo-
decoders. A low pass filter (LPF) is used to recover the
metric scattering. The snow particles have impact similar to
Rayleigh scattering [4]. original data. The performance of this system with
SDD technique is analyzed along with FSO system
using intensity modulation with direct detection
5. Different Studies Based on (IM/DD) technique. SDD technique performs better
Attenuation Effect and thelink distance is improved by 22.7% [5].
On the basis of the system's effectiveness, various
researches are being conducted on various weather b) High Speed, Long Reach OFDM-FSO Transmission Link
conditions to develop new models. These research' primary Incorporating OSSB and OTSB Schemes. By introducing the
areas of interest are meteorological conditions like fog, OFDM scheme, an effort has been made to probe the impact of
haze, rain, and snow. Measures can be implemented in a the environment conditions and to design a high speed and
practical system based on the findings of these long reach FSO system free from the multipath fading.
investigations. Different weather conditions like clear, foggy, and hazy
To investigate the impact of smoke and fog, researchers channel are used to model different types of condition in
used both theoretical and experimental studies. The system. CW laser diode is used at the line-width of 10 MHz and
laboratory-based empirical hypothesis that 830, 940, and 1550 nm wavelength.
1550 nm are the most resilient wavelength windows was
 TABLe 2: Comparison table of various techniques based on system parameters on wavelength of 1550 nm [1, 4, 5,].

Link
Technique Weather condition Attenuation level (dB/km) Power level (dBm) Data rate distance
(km)
Heavy rain 8.68 0
SAC OCDMA-FSO SDD 2.5 Gbps 1.1
Clear sky 3 0 2.5 Gbps 1.3
Clear 0.155 0 2 Gbps 10
5 Gbps 6

Mild clear 0.441 0 2 Gbps 9

5 Gbps 5

Low haze 1.537 0 2 Gbps 5.4

5 Gbps 3.4

Mild haze 4.285 0 2 Gbps 3.2

OFDM-OSTB-FSO 5 Gbps 2.2
Heavy haze 10.115 0 2 Gbps 1.8
5 Gbps 1.15

Low fog 15.55 0 2 Gbps 1.35

5 Gbps 1

Mild fog 33.961 0 2 Gbps 0.720

5 Gbps 0.540

OFDM-FSO Heavy fog 84.904 0 2 Gbps 0.360

5 Gbps 0.300

Clear 0.155 0 2 Gbps 10.2

5 Gbps 6.2

Mild clear 0.441 0 2 Gbps 8

5 Gbps 5.2

Low haze 1.537 0 2 Gbps 5

5 Gbps 3.6

Mild haze 4.285 0 2 Gbps 2.8

OFDM-OSSB-FSO 5 Gbps 2.5
Heavy haze 10.115 0 2 Gbps 1.7
5 Gbps 1.4

Low fog 15.55 0 2 Gbps 1.26

5 Gbps 1.2

Mild fog 33.961 0 2 Gbps 0.740

5 Gbps 0.590

Heavy fog 84.904 0 2 Gbps 0.360

5 Gbps 0.310
Very clear 0.065 −10 2.5 Gbps 150
Clear 0.233 10 2.5 Gbps 150
Light haze 0.55 20 2.5 Gbps 150
Heavy haze 2.37 40 155 Mbps 150
Heavy haze 2.37 30 155 Mbps 55
WDM-FSO 622 Mbps 51.52
Light rain 6.27 30 155 Mbps 22
622 Mbps 20.8

Medium rain 9.64 30 155 Mbps 14.7

622 Mbps 13.9

Heavy rain 19.28 30 155 Mbps 7.6

622 Mbps 7.2

5
The power to be used by hybrid system is 0 dBm and ideal Such as a human eye can be affected by Laser when eye
antenna aperture is 15 cm. The data rate is 5 Gbps and a 4- comes in direct contact with it on a particular wavelength
QAM sequence generator generates thedata and OFDM at a particular power like 10 mW power for Class 1 M laser
modulator using 512 subcarriers is used. Thedata is in 1550 nm wavelength permissible by IEC (International
transmitted over FSO link using OTSB/OSSB schemes instead Electro technical Commission) standards.
of ODSB scheme which is prone to fading [Link]
modulation is done by Dual Electrode Mach-Zehnder 7. Conclusion
Modulator (DEMZM) and a phase shifter. It is concluded
that hybrid OFDM-FSO system performs better in diverse FSO offers many advantages over existing techniques which
channel conditions and upon comparing both OSSB and can be either optical or radio or microwave. Less cost
OTSB schemes OSSB performs better than OTSB at high data and time to setup are the main attraction of FSO system.
rate as it has more immunity against fading due to weather Optical equipment can be used in FSO system with some
conditions [4]. modification. Merits of FSO communication system and its
application area make it recent technology but there are
(b) Optimization of Free Space Optics Parameters Using WDM some problems arising due to the attenuation caused by
System. A unidirectional WDM system is designed by the medium. FSO system poses some problem like attenuation
investigators. Different characteristics like data rate, power, in medium that can affect the performance of transmission
link range, number of users, and channel spacing are needed as power loss would be there. Different models based on
to be optimized according to the weather conditions. The these review are used to study the system performance
attenuation for different type of rain is 6.27, 9.64, and before installing it at the location. This can lead to the
19.28 dB/km for light, medium, and heavy rain, respectively. improvement of the system. Different techniques like
1550 nm wavelength is best for both rain and haze as there OFDM-FSO, WDM-FSO based system are new approach to
is less attenuation than any other wavelength. The priority improve the system performance with high speed and
for optimization of parameters is required to be done for longer distance. So new techniques can be designed by
the better performance of system. Geometric losses are not combination of these and, by enhancing these techniques,
considered during this work. Optical Amplifier Gain is system designing can be improved and the demerits of FSO
having the highest priority and the rest of priority system can be reduced to a minimum level.
decrementing series is laser power, data rate, and aperture
size and link length is having the lowest priority. A 622 References
Mbps of data rate is maximized for all types of rain as
concluded from results. For clear weather condition, data [1] [Link]
rate could be 2.5 Gbps for the distance of 150 km. For [2] J. Kaufmann, “Free space optical communications: an overview
critical weather conditions, short link distance and lower of applications and technologies,” in Proceedings of the Boston
data rate can be used to optimize the FSO system for IEEE Communications Society Meeting, 2011.
successful transmission [1]. [3] H. A. Willebrand and B. S. Ghuman, “Fiber optics without fiber,”
Comparison of these studies is done based on the IEEE Spectrum, vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 40–45, 2001.
different parameters like wavelength, power level, data rate, [4] V. Sharma and G. Kaur, “High speed, long reach OFDM-FSO
and link distance. Summarization of all parameters with transmission link incorporating OSSB and OTSB schemes,”
differenttechniques is done in Table 2. Optik, vol. 124, no. 23, pp. 6111–6114, 2013.
From Table 2, it can be concluded that the more the [5] R. K. Z. Sahbudin, M. Kamarulzaman, S. Hitam, M. Mokhtar,
attenuation the smaller the link distance. With increase in the and S. B. A. Anas, “Performance of SAC OCDMA-FSO
data rate, link distance reduces. If power level increases, then communication systems,” Optic, vol. 124, no. 17, pp. 2868–2870,
link distance improves depending upon the value of power 2013.
level. Effect of attenuation is lesser if power level is high but [6] S. A. Al-Gailani, A. B. Mohammad, and R. Q. Shaddad,
power level cannot be increased more than value defined by “Enhancement of free space optical link in heavy rain
various organizations that define the principle of laser safety. attenuation using multiple beam concept,” Optic, vol. 124, no.
21, pp.4798–4801, 2013.
7