Analysis of dispersion effect on a NRZ-OOK terrestrial free-space optical transmission system

Abstract

Background: In this paper, the impact of the dispersion effect, due to atmospheric pressure and temperature, on NRZ-OOK terrestrial freespace optical transmission system is investigated. An expression for the dispersion parameter in FSO atmospheric channel is derived. Results: The results show that the variation of the refractive index along the transmission path induces fluctuations of group velocity dispersion of the optical pulse resulting in broadening of the pulse duration. Simulation results show that at a propagation distance of 7.5 km, the broadening ratio for input pulse duration of 300 fs is approximately 2.39. Further, at a propagation distance of 7.5 km, the remaining fraction of energy is approximately 40 % for a 300 fs input pulse duration. However, by increasing the transmitter input power, the effect of dispersion could be reduced. Namely, for a reference BER of 10-9, the maximum distance that it could be achieved is about 1.461 km for an input power of 1 mW, while it is about 2.694 km for an input power of 4 mW. Conclusions: The results indicate that the effect of dispersion due to pressure and temperature increases with the propagation distance. What induces a high BER. However, the results show that it is possible to reach longer propagation distances with a lower BER by increasing the input power.