Performance Investigation of 1.6 Tbps Hybrid WDM-PDM-OFDM-based Free Space Optics Transmission Link

Abstract

A novel ultra-high capacity free space optics (FSO) link has been developed by incorporating hybrid wavelength divison multiplexing (WDM)-polarization division multiplexing (PDM)-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques with 16-level quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) signals. Coherent detection is employed to enhance the receiver sensitivity in the presence of channel efects. The proposed link is analyzed under the impact of dynamic weather conditions viz. haze, rain, dust and fog using bit error rate, optical signal to noise ratio, error vector magnitude and maximum transmission range performance metrics. Sixteen independent DWDM channels with 0.8 nm channel spacing each carrying 100 Gbps data are successfully tranported using the proposed FSO link realizing a net data rate of 1.6 Tbps. Furthermore, we demonstrated a performance comparison of the link with contemporary works. The proposed FSO link provides a feasible and viable solution to implement ultra-high-capacity wireless transmission networks for last-mile access.