FSO artificial low-cost fog attenuation experiment design

A low-cost experiment, feasible without the use of laboratory-grade atmospheric chamber and optical spectral analyzer, was designed to experimentally evaluate the influence of fog and smoke on free-space optical systems. Low-visibility conditions were simulated using an artificial fog machine and smoke flares in a 50 m PVC corridor with several bi-directional wireless optical links established at wavelengths in the 1270 nm-1550 nm range with an additional green laser based measurement system. In low visibility conditions the variation in attenuation with wavelength was found to be larger than predicted by the standard model. We propose a new empirical model for this region and show that longer infra-red wavelengths are more suitable for free space optical communication.