Empirical performance evaluation of FSO availability under different weather conditions

Free space optics (FSO), is an optical wireless communication (OWC) technology where transmission of data is carried by optical signals, i.e., near infra-red (IR), LED, laser, IR-laser, etc., and the medium for signal propagation is free space. Although the subject received a lot of attention recently, communications via visible light have been of considerable interest in the field of research and military applications for many decades. FSO offers an unlicensed frequency spectrum, a larger bandwidth, very high data rates, less power consumption, easy deployability, high availability and most especially, capabilities towards 5G/5G+ requirements satisfaction. Focus of this research is on the evaluation of FSO availability empirically and statistically based on different weather conditions experienced in the West of Scotland. The empirical trails were conducted at different locations at the Paisley campus of the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). Later, statistical analysis was performed with reference to historical climate data to compare the results with the empirical findings. Our empirical results suggested the feasibility of FSO deployment for distances up to 100m, particularly suitable for inter-infrastructure wireless communications.