Fiber Optic and Atmospheric Optical Communication

This book answers the fundamental question of how tocharacterizeandovercomethe drawbacks associated with optical communication links that suffer from various types of fading when optical signals with information traverse these wireless (atmospheric) or wired (fiber optic) channels. The authors present material to help the reader predict the capacity, data rate, spectral efficiency, and bit-error-rate (BER) associated with a channel that experiences fading. It also presents modulation techniques and methods of coding and decoding that are useful when implementing communications systems. The book discusses how to model the channels, including treating distortion due to the various fading phenomena. Light waves and their similarity to radio waves are described, and the way light propagates through the atmosphere, through materials, and through the boundary between two materials is explained. This book also presents modulation techniques and methods of coding and decoding that are useful when implementing communications systems.