These include beam divergence over long distances, imprecise alignment resulting in pointing errors, strong atmospheric attenuation in inclement weather, and atmospheric turbulence. However, despite decades of research challenges remain. As a result of this growing set of applications, the FSO market is expected to reach $4.1 billion by 2031 at a CAGR of 26.9%. And space missions such as NASA’s Artemis II crewed mission to the Moon and Psyche orbiter - investigating 16 Psyche, a metal asteroid in the asteroid belt - are launching with onboard laser systems to enable high data rate communication between deep space and Earth. Meanwhile, low-Earth orbiting satellites and ground stations are beginning to be kitted out with space-to-space and direct-to-Earth FSO communication systems, aiming towards global broadband coverage. For example, in 2021 Aircision and TNO demonstrated that their FSO systems could reliably transmit 10 Gbps over 2.5 km. Today, experimental FSO systems on the ground can deliver petabytes per second data transfer rates over several meters and terabytes per second over several kilometers, while their commercial counterparts are delivering gigabytes per second (Gbps) capacity over kilometers. A high-sensitivity photodetector then converts these laser pulses back into electronic data. The laser travels through air, space, or water before entering a receiver lens system. Modern FSO systems consist of a high-power laser source that converts data into laser pulses and sends them through a lens system. And it is fast to install and reasonably cheap.įor these reasons, many see free-space optics (FSO) as a key enabling technology for broadband internet access in developing countries, remote communities, and in disaster response, as well as offering a promising route to the high-speed data rates required of future 6G networks.įSO communication was first achieved by Alexander Graham Bell in 1880, when the Scottish inventor transmitted sound modulated on a beam of light over a distance of 213 m using his photo-phone. It has low power requirements and offers high capacity and resistance to electromagnetic interference. Described as ‘fiber without the fiber,’ it can provide point-to-point communication through air, space, and water using infrared, visible, or ultraviolet parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Free-space optical communication has long been touted as the next big thing in broadband data transmission.
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