An Empirical Expression for Attenuation Coefficient Evaluation of FSO Links During Night-Time Over Maritime Area of Piraeus Port in Greece

Free space optical (FSO) systems are extensively used in modern communication networks, due to the high performance and security they can achieve. However, their performance is strongly affected by the weather conditions and the various atmospheric phenomena. In this work, the influence of the atmospheric condition on an FSO system installed in maritime environment is experimentally investigated. More precisely, an empirical experimental model for the attenuation coefficient/ optical power received based on the impact of main atmospheric parameters, i.e. relative humidity, temperature, etc, will be extracted for an FSO system in the maritime environment of the port of Piraeus, during night-time. This model will be validated comparing the measured attenuation coefficient/ optical power received to the one that is estimated from the experimental model. The existence of such a model will be a very useful and important tool in the deployment of modern FSO communication networks, as the expected performance of the system will be estimated with high precision through basic atmospheric parameters of the area which can be easily estimated.