Experimental indoor validation of weak intensity fluctuations over free-space optical communication link

Abstract

In this paper, we present experimental results for characterizing turbulence phenomena in free-space optical (FSO) communication under laboratory controlled conditions. Collected data is used for statistical determination of the probability density function (PDF) of irradiance signal fluctuations. In literature, there are a number of empirical models for variety of turbulence regimes. Thus, obtained PDF is compared with selected models from the bibliography in order to describe properly statistical properties of real turbulent channel and help improving of FSO system performance calculation. In overall, analysis has shown that the results obtained under given constraints fit well with the exponentiated Weibull turbulence model.