Optical wireless communication (OWC) refers to transmission in unguided propagation media through the use of optical carriers, i.e., visible, infrared (IR), and ultraviolet (UV) bands. In this survey, we focus on outdoor terrestrial OWC links which operate in near IR band. These are widely referred to as free space optical (FSO) communication in the literature. FSO systems are used for high rate communication between two fixed points over distances up to several kilometers. In comparison to radio-frequency (RF) counterparts, FSO links have a very high optical bandwidth available, allowing much higher data rates. They are appealing for a wide range of applications such as metropolitan area network (MAN) extension, local area network (LAN)-to-LAN connectivity, fiber back-up, backhaul for wireless cellular networks, disaster recovery, high definition TV and medical image/video transmission, wireless video surveillance/monitoring, and quantum key distribution among others. Despite the major advantages of FSO technology and variety of its application areas, its widespread use has been hampered by its rather disappointing link reliability particularly in long ranges due to atmospheric turbulence-induced fading and sensitivity to weather conditions. In the last five years or so, there has been a surge of interest in FSO research to address these major technical challenges. Several innovative physical layer concepts, originally introduced in the context of RF systems, such as multiple-input multiple-output communication, cooperative diversity, and adaptive transmission have been recently explored for the design of next generation FSO systems. In this paper, we present an up-to-date survey on FSO communication systems. The first part describes FSO channel models and transmitter/receiver structures. In the second part, we provide details on information theoretical limits of FSO channels and algorithmic-level system design research activities to approach these limits. Specific topics include advances in modulation, channel coding, spatial/cooperative diversity techniques, adaptive transmission, and hybrid RF/FSO systems.

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Survey on Free Space Optical Communication: A Communication Theory Perspective

In recent years, free space optical (FSO) communication has gained significant importance owing to its unique features: large bandwidth, license free spectrum, high data rate, easy and quick deployability, less power, and low mass requirements. FSO communication uses optical carrier in the near infrared band to establish either terrestrial links within the Earth’s atmosphere or inter-satellite/deep space links or ground-to-satellite/satellite-to-ground links. It also finds its applications in remote sensing, radio astronomy, military, disaster recovery, last mile access, backhaul for wireless cellular networks, and many more. However, despite of great potential of FSO communication, its performance is limited by the adverse effects (viz., absorption, scattering, and turbulence) of the atmospheric channel. Out of these three effects, the atmospheric turbulence is a major challenge that may lead to serious degradation in the bit error rate performance of the system and make the communication link infeasible. This paper presents a comprehensive survey on various challenges faced by FSO communication system for ground-to-satellite/satellite-to-ground and inter-satellite links. It also provides details of various performance mitigation techniques in order to have high link availability and reliability. The first part of this paper will focus on various types of impairments that pose a serious challenge to the performance of optical communication system for ground-to-satellite/satellite-to-ground and inter-satellite links. The latter part of this paper will provide the reader with an exhaustive review of various techniques both at physical layer as well as at the other layers (link, network, or transport layer) to combat the adverse effects of the atmosphere. It also uniquely presents a recently developed technique using orbital angular momentum for utilizing the high capacity advantage of optical carrier in case of space-based and near-Earth optical communication links. This survey provides the reader with comprehensive details on the use of space-based optical backhaul links in order to provide high capacity and low cost backhaul solutions.

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Optical Communication in Space: Challenges and Mitigation Techniques

The frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) technique for characterizing and displaying arbitrary femtosecond pulses is presented. The method is simple, general, broadband, and does not require a reference pulse. Using virtually any instantaneous nonlinear-optical effect, FROG involves measuring the spectrum of the signal pulse as a function of the delay between two input pulses. The resulting trace of intensity versus frequency and delay is related to the pulse's spectrogram a visually intuitive transform containing time and frequency information. It is proven using phase retrieval concepts that the FROG trace yields the full intensity I(t) and phase phi (t) of an arbitrary ultrashort pulse with no physically significant ambiguities. FROG appears to have temporal resolution limited only by the response of the nonlinear medium. The method is demonstrated by using self-diffraction through the electronic Kerr effect in BK-7 glass and 620-nm, linearly chirped, approximately 200-fs pulses of a few microjoules. >

Characterization of arbitrary femtosecond pulses using frequency-resolved optical gating

Free space optical (FSO) communications is a cost-effective and high bandwidth access technique, which has been receiving growing attention with recent commercialization successes. A major impairment in FSO links is the turbulence- induced fading which severely degrades the link performance. To mitigate turbulence-induced fading and, therefore, to improve the error rate performance, spatial diversity can be used over FSO links which involves the deployment of multiple laser transmitters/receivers. In this paper, we investigate the bit error rate (BER) performance of FSO links with spatial diversity over log- normal atmospheric turbulence fading channels, assuming both independent and correlated channels among transmitter/receiver apertures. Our analytical derivations build upon an approximation to the sum of correlated log-normal random variables. The derived BER expressions quantify the effect of spatial diversity and possible spatial correlations in a log-normal channel.

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BER Performance of Free-Space Optical Transmission with Spatial Diversity

We recently introduced a new technique, frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG), for directly determining the full intensity I(t) and phase φ(t) of a single femtosecond pulse. By using almost any instantaneous nonlinear-optical interaction of two replicas of the ultrashort pulse to be measured, FROG involves measuring the spectrum of the signal pulse as a function of the delay between the replicas. The resulting trace of intensity versus frequency and delay yields an intuitive display of the pulse that is similar to the pulse spectrogram, except that the gate is a function of the pulse to be measured. The problem of inverting the FROG trace to obtain the pulse intensity and phase can also be considered a complex two-dimensional phase-retrieval problem. As a result, the FROG trace yields, in principle, an essentially unique pulse intensity and phase. We show that this is also the case in practice. We present an iterative-Fourier-transform algorithm for inverting the FROG trace. The algorithm is unusual in its use of a novel constraint: the mathematical form of the signal field. Without the use of a support constraint, the algorithm performs quite well in practice, even for pulses with serious phase distortions and for experimental data with noise, although it occasionally stagnates when pulses with large intensity fluctuations are used.

Using phase retrieval to measure the intensity and phase of ultrashort pulses: frequency-resolved optical gating

Atmospheric channel effects on free-space laser communication.- Free-space laser communication performance in the atmospheric channel.- Laser communication transmitter and receiver design.- Free-space laser communications with adaptive optics: Atmospheric compensation experiments.- Optical networks, last mile access and applications.- Communication techniques and coding for atmospheric turbulence channels.- Optical Communications in the mid-wave IR spectral band.- Quantum cascade laser-based free space optical communications.- All-weather long-wavelength infrared free space optical communications.

Free-space laser communications : principles and advances

In spite of the tremendous technical advancement of available components, the major limitation of free-space laser communication (lasercom) performance is due to the atmosphere, because a portion of the atmospheric path always includes turbulence and multiple scattering effects. Starting from a fundamental understanding of the laser communications system under diverse weather conditions, this chapter provides a comprehensive treatment of the evaluation of parameters needed for analyzing system performance. The significance of higher-order statistics of probability density functions of irradiance fluctuations due to turbulence to performance analysis is explained. Starting from link analysis, the necessary expressions relating link margin, bit-error-rate, signal-to-noise-ratio, and probability of fade statistics are presented. Results for laboratory-simulated atmospheric turbulence and multiple scattering are presented. Example numerical results for simulations of lasercom systems operating under various at mospheric conditions are presented for various scenarios such as uplink-downlink (e.g., between ground and satellite, aircraft or UAV) and horizontal (terrestrial) link. Both turbulence and multiple scattering effects have been included in the analysis with both on-off keying and pulse-position modulation schemes. Statistical estimation and computation of communication parameters presented in this chapter will be useful in designing and optimizing lasercom systems that are reliable under all weather conditions.

Free-space laser communication performance in the atmospheric channel

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Free-Space Laser Communications

A stochastic non-line-of-sight (NLOS) ultraviolet (UV) communication channel model is developed using a Monte Carlo simulation method based on photon tracing. The expected channel impulse response is obtained by computing photon arrival probabilities and associated propagation delay at the receiver. This method captures the multiple scattering effects of UV signal propagation in the atmosphere, and relaxes the assumptions of single scattering theory. The proposed model has a clear advantage in reliable prediction of NLOS path loss, as validated by outdoor experiments at small to medium elevation angles. A Gamma function is shown to agree well with the predicted impulse response, and this provides a simple means to determine the channel bandwidth. The developed model is employed to study the characteristics of NLOS UV scattering channels, including path loss and channel bandwidth, for a variety of scattering conditions, source wavelength, transmitter and receiver optical pointing geometries, and range.

Modeling of non-line-of-sight ultraviolet scattering channels for communication

This title provides a comprehensive, unified tutorial covering the most recent advances in the emerging technology of free-space optics (FSO), a field in which interest and attention continue to grow along with the number of new challenges. This book is intended as an all-inclusive source to serve the needs of those who require information about the fundamentals of FSO, as well as up-to-date advanced knowledge of the state-of-the-art in the technologies available today. This text is intended for graduate students, and will also be useful for research scientists and engineers with an interest in the field. FSO communication is a practical solution for creating a three dimensional global broadband communications grid, offering bandwidths far beyond what is possible in the Radio Frequency (RF) range. However, the attributes of atmospheric turbulence and scattering impose perennial limitations on availability and reliability of FSO links. From a systems point-of-view, this groundbreaking book provides a thorough understanding of channel behavior, which can be used to design and evaluate optimum transmission techniques that operate under realistic atmospheric conditions. Topics addressed include: FSO Physical and Statistical Models: Single/Multiple Inputs/Outputs Understanding FSO: Theory and Systems Analysis Modulation and Coding for Free-Space Optical Channels Atmospheric Mitigation and Compensation for FSO Links Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) Ultraviolet and Indoor FSO Communications FSO Platforms: UAV and Mobile Retromodulators for Free Space Data links Hybrid Optical RF Communications Free-space and Atmospheric Quantum Communications Other related topics: Chaos-based and Terahertz (THz) FSO Communications

Arun K. Majumdar

Papers

Free-space laser communications : principles and advances

Free-space laser communication performance in the atmospheric channel

Free-Space Laser Communications

Modeling of non-line-of-sight ultraviolet scattering channels for communication

Advanced Free Space Optics (FSO): A Systems Approach