Seminar Report: Abstract
Free space optics or FSO –Although it only recently and rather suddenly sprang into public awareness, free space optics is not a new idea. It has roots that back over 30 years to the era before fibre optic cable became the preferred transport medium for high-speed communication. FSO technology has been revived to offer high bandwidth last mile connectivity for today’s converged network requirements.
FSO (free space optics) is an optical communication technology in which data is transmitted by propagation of light in free space allowing optical connectivity. There is no requirement for the optical fibre cable. Working of FSO is similar to OFC (optical fibre cable) networks but the only difference is that the optical beams are sent through the free air instead of OFC cores that is glass fibre. FSO system consists of an optical transceiver at both ends to provide full duplex (bidirectional) capability. FSO communication is not a new technology. It has been in existence from the 8th century but now is more evolved. FSO is a LOS (line of sight) technology, where data, voice, and video communication is achieved with maximum 10Gbps of data rate by full duplex (bidirectional) connectivity.
Characteristics of FSO System
An effective FSO system should have the following characteristics:
- FSO systems should have the ability to operate at higher power levels for longer distance.
- For high-speed FSO systems, high-speed modulation is important.
- An overall system design should have a small footprint and low power consumption because of its maintenance.
- FSO system should have the ability to operate over a wide temperature range and the performance degradation would be less for outdoor systems.
- Meantime between failures (MTBF) of the system should be more than 10 years.
Free-space optical is a communication system where free space acts as a medium between transceivers and they should be in LOS for the successful transmission of optical signal. The medium can be air, outer space, or vacuum. This system can be used for communication purposes in hours and in the lesser economy. There are many advantages of FSO like high bandwidth and no spectrum license. The transmission in FSO is dependent on the medium because the presence of foreign elements like rain, fog, and haze, physical obstruction, scattering, and atmospheric turbulence are some of these factors. Different studies on weather conditions and techniques employed to mitigate their effect are discussed in this seminar report.
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