Performance Evaluation of OWC System in different weather conditions using Wavelength and Spatial Diversity

Abstract

Optical Wireless Communication uses free space to transmit the signals wirelessly in the atmosphere. Major delimiting factors of OWC system are atmospheric turbulence, attenuation due to FOG, Rain, Haze etc. Performance of the system is severely degraded by atmospheric losses. In this work, Gamma Gamma turbulence channel model is used for weak to strong atmospheric turbulence regime. Utilizing WDM and Spatial diversity MIMO significantly improves the performance of OWC System. WDM with spatial diversity MIMO is analyzed for different levels of atmospheric turbulence, heavy rain, Fog and Haze conditions. In dense Fog conditions, the OWC link distance up to 1200m could be achieved by using the proposed system. With using diversity technique, the Q factor, BER can be improved in the presence of strong turbulence regime and other atmospheric losses like Fog, Rain, Haze etc.