Performance evaluation of free space optical link under various weather conditions

Abstract

Free space optics (FSO) is emerging as a viable complementary technology to address the need for larger bandwidth and high data rate at affordable cost. FSO communication systems face severe link availability and reliability challenges under different weather conditions, and this is a limitation for the wide-scale acceptability of the FSO technology. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of fog, snow, and rain on FSO link, and hence evaluate the performance of the FSO system for various weather conditions. It is analyzed that bit error rate (BER) and link margin of FSO system are very poor for heavy fog, rain, and snow. However, decreasing the data rate for a particular weather condition can improve both these performance parameters.