Simulation and development of a FSO system at an urban environment in Rio de Janeiro

A procedure for the analysis, modeling, and a practical trial of a Free-Space Optics (FSO) system is presented. The procedure has been conducted in the urban area of Rio de Janeiro, in 2002. Firstly, the transmitter and receiver characteristics are considered. Next, three additional parameters are introduced: they are: the atmospheric loss, the geometric loss and the scintillation. In this last parameter, a few ways how scintillation might be expressed in dB and translated into a power balance equation, is presented. Other fixed parameters, dealing with additional losses, are subsequently inserted. The FSO system availability is exhibited, using airports visibility data, leading to a prediction of the systemic availability. Attention is then focused on the Bit Error Rate, BER, which relates with the Recommendation ITU-T G.826. Within this last Recommendation, it is possible to perform a FSO analysis with respect to the climatic variation. The experiment has encompassed some short periods in which this city presents a strong morning fog. It is finally shown that FSO is a competitive and reliable transmission technology, provided proper and correct use.