Experimental Studies of the Influence of Scintillation on a FSO Communication System for Visible and Infrared Wavelengths

Abstract

On the “Free Space Optical” (FSO) communication link, the atmospheric scintillation phenomena play a crucial role. The severity of the scintillation can seriously impair the FSO link’s performance. In this article, we consider two wavelengths of FSO link, visible (638 nm) and infrared (980 nm), and measure their performances in a developed artificial scintillation simulation chamber, with the severity of scintillation ranged from low to high. The link performance is measured in terms of the eye pattern, optical power attenuation, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), bit error rate (BER), etc., at the receiver side signal. As compared to the visible wavelength, 980 nm produces favorable performance in the high scintillation regime.