Investigation on free space optical communication for various atmospheric conditions

Free space optical communication (FSO) provides high data rate by allowing light passed through the atmosphere. In Free Space Optical (FSO) Communication, the atmospheric conditions cause variations in the intensity and phase of the received signal which significantly reduces the performance of the system. In this paper, the effect of transmission distance with respect to the various atmospheric conditions such as air, haze, rain, fog and snow with different levels are investigated. Then, the Bit Error Rate (BER) while varying the link distance for various atmospheric conditions is analyzed. The transmission wavelength and date rate are 1550 nm and 2.5 Gbps is considered for investigation. Obviously, from the simulation it is noticed that the link distance is reduced while increasing the attenuation. This attempt will be useful for researchers and industries to select the optimum device for FSO with respect to the transmission distance.