OPTICAL WIRELESS

COMMUNICATION :
FREE SPACE
OPTICS
Guided by: Prepared by : Romil Shah (10BEC093)
Dr. D K Kothari Pritesh Desai (10BEC128)
 PRESENTATION
2 LAYOUT
Optical Wireless Communcation : Types
Introduction to the concepts of Free Space Optics
(FSO).
Propagation concepts, Link Budget calculations.
FSO: Last Mile Bottleneck Solution.
Configurations of FSO systems.
Chaining in FSO Systems
DATA security/ Safety considerations for FSO
systems.
Signal Propagation impediments.
Advantages of FSO as regards to other widely used
systems.
Physical Applications of FSO systems
Manufacturers/Players in field of FSO.
 Optical
Communications
3

Wired Wireless

Optical Fibre Photonic Indoor Free-Space

Communications Switching Optics
Pulse Modulations
Chromatic dispersion Fast switches Equalisation (FSO)
compensation using All optical routers Error control coding
optical signal processing Artificial neural network & Subcarrier modulation
Pulse Modulations Wavelet based receivers Spatial diversity
Optical buffers Artificial neural
Optical CDMA network/Wavelet
based receivers

3
 Optical Wireless Communication :
What does it offer?
4

Abundance of unregulated bandwidth

Wha 200 THz in the 1500-700 nm range.
No multipath fading Intensity Modulation
t and Direct Detection.
High data rate in particular line of sight(in
doe and out doors).
Improved wavelength reuse
s it capability.
Flexibility in installation - Deployment in a
offer

wide variety of network architecture and installation
on roof to roof, window to window, roof to window,

?
etc.
Secure transmission.

4
 Optical Wireless Communication :
5
Drawbacks
Multipath induced dispersion (non-line of
D sight, indoor) - Limiting data
r SNR can vary significantly with the
a distance and the ambient noise
w
Limited transmitted power - Eye safety (indoor)
b
Receiver sensitivity
Large area photo-detectors - Limits the
a bandwidth
c May be high cost - Compared with RF
k Limited range: Indoor: ambient noise is the dominant
(20-30 dB larger than the signal level . Outdoor: Fog and
s other factors
High transmitted power - Outdoor

5
 Requirements of a good
6
Transmission System:
High Bandwidth
Low BER

High SNR

Power efficient

Provide Data Security.

Low cost

Easy to install and maintain.

 Introduction to the
concepts of Free Space
7
Optics (FSO)
FSO is a line-of-sight technology which uses
LASERS and Photo detectors to provide optical
connections between two pointswithout the
fiber.
FSO can transmit data, voice or video at speeds
capable of reaching 2.5 Gbps. Products capable of
speeds upto 10 Gbps are expected to hit the
markets within one year.
FSO units consist of an optical transceiver with a
laser (transmitter) and a Photo detector (receiver)
to provide full duplex (bi-directional) capability.
FSO systems use invisible infrared laser light
wavelengths in the 750nm to 1550nm range.
8
FSO - Characteristics
Narrow low power transmit beam- inherent security
Narrow field-of-view receiver
Similar bandwidth/data rate as optical fibre
No multi-path induced distortion in LOS
Efficient optical noise rejection and a high optical
signal gain
Suitable to point-to-point communications only (out-
door and in-door)
Can support mobile users using steering and tracking
capabilities
Used in the following protocols:
- Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, FDDI, ATM
- Optical Carriers (OC)-3, 12, 24, and 48.
Cheap (cost about $4/Mbps/Month according to fSONA)
8
 FSO - Applications
9
In addition to bringing huge bandwidth to businesses /homes FSO also
finds applications in :

Others:
Inter-satellite
communication
Hospitals Disaster recovery Multi-campus university
Fibre communication
back-up
Video conferencing
Links in difficult terrains
Temporary links
e.g. conferences

FSO challenges
Cellular communication
back-haul 9
 Applications Of FSO
10
Systems
Disaster management as was
exhibited during the Sept 11
attacks.
Merill Lynch & Co. has set up FSO
system from its Vesey Street office
towers across the Hudson River to
an alternate site in New Jersey.
TeraBeam, a major producer of FSO
equipment, successfully deployed
FSO at the Sydney Summer
Olympic Games.
A network of FSO devices is fast
coming up in Seattle which is
touted as the Capital of Fog.
Manufacturers believe that if an
FSO system can successfully work
in Seattle then it can do so in any
part of the world.
Affordably extend existing fiber
network.
Disaster recovery and temporary
applications
 ADVANTAGES OF FSO
SYSTEMS
11

No licensing required.
Installation cost is very low as compared

to laying Fiber.
No sunk costs.

No capital overhangs.

Highly secure transmission possible.

High data rates, upto 2.5 Gbps at present

and 10 Gbps in the near future.

 Block Diagram of a FSO
12
system
 Optical Link Geometry
13
 How does the system
14
works?
A source producing data input is to be transmitted to a remote
destination. This source has its output modulated onto an optical
carrier; laser or LED, which is then transmitted as an optic al field
through the atmospheric channel.
The important aspects of the optical transmitter system are size,
power, and beam quality, which determine laser intensity and
minimum divergence obtainable from the system.
At the receiver, the field is optically collected and detected,
generally in the presence of noise interference, signal distortion,
and background radiation. On the receiver side, important features
are the aperture size and the f/-number, which determine the
amount of the collected light and the detector field-of-view (FOV).
The transmit optics consists of lens assembly ( Plano convex
lenses ) and receiver Optics consist of telescope units to receive
the incident light.
 LED vs Laser Diode as light
15 source
The choice of LED vs. Laser Diode as a light source in a
wireless optical transmission product depends on the
target application, and the related performance, cost
and reliability requirements of the overall solution
being designed.
Long range, very high speed (gigabit or more) point-to-
point FSO systems require laser diodes. Such products
compete with high-speed RF point-to-point solutions
often based on milimeter wave transmission in the 60,
70, 80 and 90 GHz bands.
However, shorter range LED based systems can
achieve high-speed optical system performance, while
dramatically reducing the overall system size and cost.
 Receivers and Material
16
System
Compared with transmitters, receiver choices are
much more limited.
The two most common detector material systems
used in the near-IR spectral range are based on Si or
indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) technology.
Germanium is another material system that covers
the operating wavelength range of commercially
available FSO systems.
However, germanium technology is not used very
often because of the high dark current values of this
material.
All these materials have a rather broad spectral
response in wavelength, and, unlike lasers, they are
not tuned toward a specific wavelength.
 Detectors in Different
17
Systems
Usually a trans-impedance amplifier is used after the detector because in
most cases they provide the highest gain at the fastest speed.
If CCD, CMOS, or quad cell detectors are used as tracking detectors, these
relatively large area devices are easy to align to the tracking optics.
However, care must be taken in manufacture to co-align these optics with
the transmit and receive optical axes.
For building-mounted free-space optical systems, the tracking bandwidth
can be very lowsub-hertzbecause the bulk of building motion is due to
the buildings uneven thermal loading and these effects occur in a time
scale of hours.
For systems that are to be mounted on towers or tall poles, the tracking
bandwidth should be highermost likely on the order of several hertz at
leastto remove wind-induced vibrations.
Acquisition systems can be as crude as aligning a gunsight to very
sophisticated GPS based, high accuracy, fully automated systems. The
choice of this subsystem really depends on the application and number of
devices to be put into a network.
 Modulation Technique Used
18

On and Off Keying (OOK) Modulation : On-

off keying(OOK) the simplest form of modulationthat
representsdigital data as the presence or absence of
acarrier wave. In its simplest form, the presence of a carrier
for a specific duration represents abinaryone, while its
absence for the same duration represents a binary zero.
Pulse Position Modulation : Pulse-position
modulation(PPM) is a form of signalmodulationin which M
message bits are encoded by transmitting a single pulse in
one ofpossible time-shifts. This is repeated every T seconds,
such that the transmitted bit rate is M/T bits per second. It is
primarily useful foroptical communicationssystems, where
there tends to be little or nomultipathinterference.
 OOK Modulation
19
 PPM Modulation Scheme
20
 Modulation In Detail
21
 Working -Modulation
22

Firstly, the incoming data stream is serial to parallel converted into

"n" independent streams. These streams are encoded in parallel by
an encoder.
In the parallel encoder, a data block is composed by taking one bit
out of each data sequence, each time the data blocks are encoded.
The parity check bits are added and transmitted on "k" exclusive
channels, which have same rate as the data sequence and are also
generated by the encoder.
Hence, this parallel encoder makes an (11 + k, n) code, where n +
k is the codeword length. Secondly, these n + k codeword
sequences are modulated into 00K or PPM codes on each channel.
At the optical modulator, these code sequences modulate each
diode with a different wavelength and are multiplexed. In the
multiplexer, each optical signal from channels is focused on an
optical fiber.
The optical pulses from the fiber are spread on the optical channel
and suffer form the effects of ISI.
 Working - Demodulation
23

At the receiver, the transmitted pulses are received

together with the ambient light noise. These multiplexed
signals are separated in accordance with their carrier
wavelength.
The optical filter is used as the de-multiplexer. These
optical band-pass filters are usually constructed of
multiple thin dielectric layers, and can achieve narrow
bandwidths.
These separated signals passed to the photo diode
array, demodulated by pulse demodulator, and then
decoded in parallel by the parallel decoder. Finally,
these parallel data blocks are parallel to serial
converted to retrieve the original data.
 FSO - Basics
Cloud
IT
CIRCU
R
DRIVE

PROCESSIN
Rain

SIGNAL
DETECTOR
PHOTO
Smoke

G
Gases
Temperature
variations
Fog and aerosol

Transmission of optical radiation through the atmosphere obeys the

Beer-Lambertss law: 2
d2 L / 10
Pr Pt 2 10
d1 ( D L) 2 Dominant term at
99.9% availability

: Attenuation coefficient dB/km Not controllable and is roughly

independent of wavelength in heavy attenuation conditions.
d1 and d2: Transmit and receive aperture diameters (m)
D: Beam divergence (mrad)(1/e for Gaussian beams; FWHA for flat top
beams),
This equation fundamentally ties FSO to the atmospheric weather
24 conditions
Link Range L
 Theoretical Maximum
25 Range:
 LAST MILE
26 BOTTLENECKS
Less then 5% of all buildings in the US have a direct
connection to the very high speed (2.5-10 Gbps) fiber
optic backbone, yet more than 75% of businesses are
within 1 mile of the fiber backbone.
Most of these businesses are running some high
speed data network within their building, such as fast
Ethernet (100 Mbps), or Gigabit Ethernet (1.0 Gbps).
Yet, their Internet access is only provided by much
lower bandwidth technologies available though the
existing copper wire infrastructure (T-1 (1.5 Mbps),
cable modem (5 Mbps shared) DSL (6 Mbps one
way) ), etc.
The last mile problem is to connect the high
bandwidth from the fiber optic backbone to all of the
businesses with high bandwidth networks.
27
 DSL and cable modems cannot provide true
broadband services. Cable modems enjoy higher
capacity, yet the channel is shared and the
amount of bandwidth at any given time is not
guaranteed.
Copper lines provide data rates to a fraction of 1

Mbps.
T1 lines can reach upto a few Mbps but are still far

away from the Gbps speed which the fiber

backbone can support.
The chart below shows how these technologies

address different market segments based on

technology, technical capabilities (reach,
bandwidth), and economic realities.

28
29
 Different Topologies of FSO
30
Networks
Point to Multipoint Topology
Point to Point Topology
Ring with Spurs Topology
Mesh Topology
Metro Network
 Point-to-Multipoint Topology
31
 Point-to-Point Topology
32
 Ring with Spurs Topology
33
 Mesh Topology
34
 Typical Topology in a Metro
35
 A high-bandwidth cost-effective solution to the
last mile problem is to use free-space laser
communication (also known as or optical
wireless) in a mesh architecture to get the high
bandwidth quickly to the customers.

36
 DATA SECURITY
37

To overcome the security in a

network two conditions are
necessary:
(1) Intercept enough of the signal

to reconstruct data packets and

(2) Be able to decode that

information.
eventing Interception of the Signa
38

Directional transmission:

Narrow divergence of the FSO

transmit path (shown in red) as
compared to a typical Radio
Frequency (RF) path (shown in blue).
The tightly collimated FSO beam
ensures that the signal energy is
focused on the receiving unit, making
interception of the beam extremely
39
 Another view of the narrow beam divergence
inherent in FSO transmission. (For clarity only one
40
transit beam is shown.)
 Challenges to FSO
41
Communication
Physical Obstruction
Atmospheric Losses
Free space loss
Clear air absorption
Weather conditions (Fog, rain, snow, etc.)
Scattering
Scintillation
Building Sway and Seismic activity
 Physical Obstruction
42

Construction crane or flying bird comes in

path of light beam temporarily

Solution:
Receiver can recognize temporary loss of

connection
In packet-switched networks such short-

duration interruptions can be handled by

higher layers using packet retransmission
 Free space loss
43

Proportion of transmitted
power arriving at the
receiver
Occurs due to slightly
diverging beam

Solution:
High receiver gain and large receiver aperture

Accurate pointing
 Clear Air Absorption
44

Equivalent to absorption loss in optical

fibers
Wavelength dependent
Low-loss at wavelengths ~850nm,
~1300nm and ~1550nm
Hence these wavelengths are used for
transmission
 Weather Conditions
45

Adverse atmospheric conditions increase Bit Error

Rate (BER) of an FSO system
Fog causes maximum attenuation
Water droplets in fog modify light characteristics
or completely hinder the passage of light
Attenuation due to fog is known as Mie scattering

Solution:
Increasing transmitter power to maximum

allowable
Shorten link length to be between 200-500m
 Scattering
46

Caused by collision of
wavelength with particles in
atmosphere
Causes deviation of light
beam
Less power at receiver
Significant for long range
communication
 Scintillation
47

Heated air rising from the earth or man-made devices

such as heating ducts creates temperature variations
among different air pockets. This can cause fluctuations
in signal amplitude which leads to image fluctuations at
the FSO receiver end.
Caused due to different refractive indices of small air
pockets at different temperatures along beam path
Air pockets act as prisms and lenses causing refraction
of beam
Optical signal scatters preferentially by small angles in
the direction of propagation
Distorts the wavefront of received optical signal
causing image dancing
Best observed by the simmering of horizon on a hot
day
 Scintillation (cont)
48

Solution:
Large receiver diameter to cope with

image dancing
Spatial diversity: Sending same

information from several laser

transmitters mounted in same housing
Not significant for links < 200m apart, so

shorten link length

 Building Sway and Seismic
49 activity
Movements of buildings upsets transmitter-
receiver alignment

Solution:
Use slightly divergent beam
Divergence of 3-6 milliradians will have
diameter of 3-6 m after traveling 1km
Low cost
Active tracking
Feedback mechanism to continuously align
transmitter- receiver lenses
Facilitates accelerated installation, but
expensive
 Empirical Design Principles
50

Use lasers ~850 nm for short distances

and ~1550 nm for long distance
communication with maximum allowable
power
Slightly divergent beam
Large receiver aperture
Link length between 200-1000m in case of
adverse weather conditions
Use multi-beam system
 Rough Estimate of Power losses in
the system Infrared light (765 nm)
51 :
Clear, still air -1 dB/km -5 dB/km
Scintillation 0 to -3 dB/km 0
Birds or foliage Impenetrable 0 to -20 dB
Window (double-glazed) -3 dB -1 dB
Light mist (visibility 400m) -25 dB/km -1 dB/km
Medium fog (visibility 100m) -120 dB/km -1
dB/km
Thick fog (visibility 40m) -300 dB/km -1
dB/km
Light rain (25mm/hour) -10 dB/km -10
dB/km
Heavy rain (150mm/hour) -25 dB/km -40
dB/km
 Limitations of FSO
52
Technology
Requires line-of-sight
Limited range (max ~8km)
Unreliable bandwidth availability
BER depends on weather conditions
Accurate alignment of transmitter-
receiver necessary
 Manufacturers/ Players in the
53
Field of FSO:
LightPointe: A San Diego based company which
received contributions from Cisco Systems and
Corning to the tune of $33 million. It has raised a total
of $51.5 million.

AirFiber: Another San Diego based company which

has received contributions from Nortel Networks to the
tune of $50 million. It has raised a total of $92.5
million.

Terabeam: A Kirkland, WA based company has

received funding from Luscent technologies to the
tune of $450 million and has raised $585 million to
date.
 References
54

http://en.wikipedia.org/
Lighpointes The phyiscs of free space
optics white paper
Lightpointe Communications Corp.,
"Free Space Optics: A Viable Last-Mile
Alternative,"white paper.
"Optical Wireless: Low-Cost, Broadband,
Optical Access," white paper, fSONA
Communications Corp.
 References
55

http://www.lightpointe.com/
http://www.freespaceoptic.com/

http://www.fsonews.com/

http://www.cablefreesolutions.com/

http://www.thefoa.org/

http://www.free-space-optics.org/

http://www.freespaceoptics.com/

http://www.opticsreport.com/
 Acknowledgment
56

We thank our Seminar Guide Dr D K

Kothari for his valuable guidance and
directions in making the seminar
resourceful. We would like to express our
gratitude to Prof Dhaval Shah who has
provided a helping hand in
understanding of the topic. We are
thankful to our seniors for helping and
guiding us and understanding the
practical applications of the topic.