OCDMA-coded free-space optical links for wireless optical-mesh networks

We propose a wireless optical-mesh network based on optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA)-coded free-space optical links. The performance of the proposed network under intermediate and strong turbulence channel conditions is investigated for synchronous and asynchronous OCDMA. We show that synchronous OCDMA using complementary Walsh-Hadamard codes operating at a raw bit rate of 622 Mb/s per user can achieve a bit-error rate of 10/sup -9/. This is achievable in channels with strong turbulence and high temporal correlation, or in channels with intermediate turbulence conditions; reasonable conditions based on channel characteristics inferred from the refractive index spectrum. For asynchronous OCDMA using optical orthogonal codes (OOCs), using a lower bound, we show that asynchronous OCDMA using OOCs cannot achieve acceptable performance for the same channel conditions, due to interference limitations.