A Contemporary Survey on Free Space

Optical Communication: Potential, Technical

Challenges, Recent Advances and Research
Direction
Abu Jahid, Mohammed H. Alsharif and Trevor J. Hall

Abstract
Due to the unprecedented growth of high speed multimedia services and diversified applications
initiated from the massive connectivity of IoT devices, 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) cellular communication
systems, the existing electromagnetic spectrum under RF ranges incapable to tackle the enormous
arXiv:2012.00155v1 [cs.IT] 30 Nov 2020

future data rate demands. Optical wireless communication (OWC) covering an ultra-wide range of
unlicensed spectrum has emerged as an extent efficient solution to mitigate conventional RF spectrum
scarcity ranging from communication distances from nm to several kilometers. Free space optical (FSO)
systems operating near IR (NIR) band in OWC links has received substantial attention for enormous
data transmission between fixed transceivers covering few kilometers path distance due to high optical
bandwidth and higher bit rate as well. FSO offers a broad range of applications in outdoor and indoor
services for instance, backhaul for mobile cellular networks, local area network (LAN) and metropolitan
area network (MAN) connectivity as well as extensions, wireless video surveillances, data centers, terres-
trial, mobile networks, military demands, last mile solution, backup of fiber connectivity, medical usage,
space communications, and so on. Despite the potential benefits of FSO technology, its widespread link
reliability suffers especially in the long-range deployment due to atmospheric turbulence, cloud induced
fading, some other environmental factors such as fog, aerosol, temperature variations, storms, heavy
rain, cloud, pointing error, and scintillation. FSO has the potential to offloading massive traffic demands
from RF networks, consequently the combined application of FSO/RF and radio over FSO (RoFSO)
systems is regarded as an excellent solution to support 5G and beyond for improving the limitations
of an individual system. The aggregate deployment of wireless scheme can attain significant system
performance in the form of spectral efficiency, reliability, and energy efficiency of distinct networks.
Over the last decade, numerous FSO research have been carried out in the context of optical wireless
communication to address the prominent technical challenges focusing on channel modeling, adaptive
transmission and modulation, cooperative diversity, mitigation techniques of channel induced factors,
novel design of FSO transmitter and receiver architectures. This survey presents the overview of several
key technologies and implications of state-of-the-art criteria in terms of spectrum reuse, classification,
architecture and applications are described for understanding FSO. This paper provides principle,
significance, demonstration, and recent technological development of FSO technology among different
appealing optical wireless technologies. The opportunities in the near future, the potential challenges
that need to be addressed to realize the successful deployment of FSO schemes are outlined.
Keywords— Optical wireless communication, 5G/B5G, IoT, free space optical communi-
cation, Radio over FSO, MIMO FSO.
I. Introduction
In recent years, diverse types of multimedia applications are expanding enormously, generating a mass
volume of mobile data together with high data-rate wireless connectivity. The forthcoming 5G technology
offers various attractive services such as massive system capacity, huge device connectivity, high-level se-
curity, ultra-low latency, extremely low power consumption with tremendous quality of experience (QoE)
[1]–[4]. Notably, 5G communication contemplated with ultra-dense heterogeneous networks allowing
hundred times additional wireless device connectivity as well as transmission rate compared to existing
wireless networks [5]. Therefore, 5G and beyond networks required high-capacity backhaul connectivity
in order to support hyper-dense fast access network, minimal power consumption and little end-to-end
delays [6]–[8]. It becomes challenging to handle unprecedented high volume of information for the 5G
connectivity and hence, a robust technical solutions are required in order to guaranteed quality of service
(QoS) for the end users. It is widely accepted that radio frequency (RF) is commonly used in wireless
communications which are more limited due to the shortage of spectrum resources [9], [10]. Envisioning
the concept of IoT, it enable real-time communications, sensing, monitoring and resource sharing in huge
smart device connectivity ranging from social, industrial and business purpose. With the rapid growth
of Internet of Things (IoT)/ Internet of Everything (IoE) technologies, a massive number of physical
smart devices are connected to the networks is accelerating exponentially [11]–[13]. Consequently, IoT
devices generates a huge volume of data. To meet the ever-increasing demand of 5G networks and
serving the huge demands of IoT paradigm, it is predicted that currently available electromagnetic
frequency band is insufficient. Meanwhile, this RF frequency band suffers a small spectrum range, also
have limitations related to regulation based spectrum use and intense level of interference from the
surrounded RF access points. In many cases, RF sub-bands are entirely allocated to mobile cellular
operators, TV broadcasting and end-to-end microwave links. From the indication of RF based wireless
network drawbacks, researchers are looking alternative approach millimeter and nanometer waves for
wireless communication. As a consequence, academia and industries are currently interested in license
free optical spectrum covering 1 mm-10 nm as an emerging alternative of RF for future ultra-density
and ultra-capacity networks in perspective of optical wireless communication (OWC) [14]–[16]. The term
OWC is referred as the wireless connectivity using optical spectrum. OWC technologies offers a number
of remarkable features for example broad spectrum, ultra-high data rate, very low latency, low cost and
lower power consumption, addressing the massive demand requirements of 5G/B5G communications.
In contrary to RF-enabled networks, OWC technology offers some remarkable advantages like as
high data rate transmission capacity ranging from nanometers to several kilometers both for indoor
and outdoor applications. Moreover, OWC technology has the potential to provide some outstanding
communication features such as reliable security, electromagnetic interference free transmission, and high
system efficiency due to using broad optical spectrum [17], [18]. Reference [19] demonstrates that OWC
technology can attain 100 Gb/s at standard indoor illuminations and capable to provide energy efficient
communication. The most important feature of OWC technologies it do not require a comprehensive
infrastructure and thereby reducing the installation cost maintaining all the green agenda for high speed
communication [20]–[23]. Visible light communication (VLC) and light fidelity (Li-Fi) techniques under
OWC technology use the existing illumination structure to realize wireless data transfer [24]–[26]. OWC
provides the greater level of data security since the light waves does not penetrate the enclosed walls.
Typically, visible light (VL), infrared (IR) or ultraviolet (UV) spectra are used as propagation media.
Most promising wireless systems in OWC such as VLC, LiFi, optical camera communication (OCC), and
free space optical (FSO) communication are being developed based on those three optical bands. However,
VLC, LiFi, OCC, and FSO technologies have some similarities and disparity by means of communication
protocol, propagation media, architecture and applications. On the other hand, the aggregate option of
OWC and RF refereed as a hybrid RF/OWC systems may establish an effective solution for tremendous
upcoming user demands.
Despite the remarkable advantages of OWC technologies, some factors for instance limited coverage
area, dependence on line-of-sight (LOS), interference incurred by multiple light sources, outdoor atmo-
sphere, and low transmit power degrade the system performance. Moreover, the performance OWC suffers
from external disturbances and limited their transmit power as well as signal to interference plus noise
ratio (SINR). Hence, it is a challenging issue to exploit successful OWC deployment addressing these
limitations. The use of RF spectrum across existing wireless applications has almost been exhausted.
However, RF-based communication is highly sensitive to interference but provides better performance
under non-LOS (NLOS) conditions. This key feature of RF systems capable to overcome some weakness
of OWC schemes particularly for the end users. In order to ensure desired QoS, the conjunction of RF
and optical wireless based networks in the context of wireless communication play a significant role
through integrating a diverse frequency bands. The heterogeneous (endeavoring of two or more network
architectures operates simultaneously) operation of access network technologies cooperate each other
for traffic offloading, thereby mitigate the QoS constraints. Due to the complementary characteristics
of RF and OWC technologies, researchers have proposed some hybrid RF/OWC approaches to sup-
port IoT/IoE, 5G/B5G communications systems [27]–[41]. The co-deployment of RF/optical wireless
hybrid system solves the last mile problem where end users can be benefited from RF coverage. The
hybrid approach incorporates two or more different related technologies (e.g., RF/FSO, WiFi/LiFi/,
VLC/FSO, LiFi,/OCC, acoustic/optical for underwater communication) that can enhance the system
performance in terms of throughput, bit error rate (BER), reliability, and energy efficiency providing
the combined benefits of both technologies. Hybrid networks can be deployed in many applications
for instance seamless movement, load balancing, high speed wireless connectivity in remote areas and
link performance improvement [42]–[51]. This survey preliminary discuss the comparative overview of
OWC technologies competitive to FSO technique. Thereafter, an extensive analysis of FSO technology
illustrating the potential applications including recently developed intriguing features, wide range of
deployment challenges and possible mitigation methods, reliability analysis, and research directions.
 TABLE I: Nomenclature
5G 5th Generation OOC Optical Orthogonal Codes
AMC Adaptive Modulation and Coding OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access
AP Access Point OOK On-Off Keying
AWGN Additive White Gaussian Noise OPPM Optical Pulse Position Modulation
B5G Beyond 5G OSTBC Orthogonal Space-Time Block Code
BER Bit Error Rate OSSK Optical Space Shift Keying
BCHB Bose–Chaudhuri–Hocquenghem Block OWC Optical Wireless Communication
BICM Bit Interleaved Coded Modulation P2P Point-to-Point
BMST Block Markov Superposition Transmission P2mP Point-to-multi Point
BPSK Binary Phase Shift Keying EE Energy Efficiency
CAP Carrierless Amplitude and Phase PAPR Peak-to-Average Power Ratio
CBFSK Coherent Frequency Shift Keying PAM Pulse Amplitude Modulation
CBPSK Coherent BPSK PAT Pointing Acquisition Tracking
CN Core Network PD Photodetector
CSI Channel State Information SM Spatial Modulation
CSK Color Shift Keying PDF Probability Density Function
CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple Access PEP Pairwise Error Probability
D2D Device-to-Device PLC Power-Line Communication
DCO DC-biased Optical PLNC Physical Layer Network Coding
DBPSK Differential BPSK PM Pulse Modulation
DPIWM Digital Pulse Interval and Width Modulation PPM Pulse Position Modulation
DPPM Differential Pulse Position Modulation PWM Pulse Width Modulation
E2E End-to-End QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
EO Electro Optic QPSK Quadrature Phase Shift Keying
FEC Forward Error Correction QoE Quality of Experience
FTTH Fiber to the Home QoS Quality of Service
GPS Global Positioning System RADAR Radio Detection And Ranging
HetNets Heterogeneous Networks RC Repetition Coding
ICI Inter-cell Interference RCPC Rate Compatible Punctured Convolutional
IMC Inverted Manchester Code RF Radio Frequency
IM/DD Intensity Modulation/Direct Detection RoFSO Radio Over FSO
IoE Internet of Everything RS Reed-Solomon
IoT Internet of Things RSS Received Signal Strength
IR Infrared Radiation SDN Software Defined Networking
ISI Inter Symbol Interference SE Spectral Efficiency
LD Laser Diode SER Symbol Error Rate
LDPC Low Density Parity Check SIM Subcarrier Intensity Modulation
LED Light Emitting Diode SINR Signal-to-Interference-Plus-Noise Ratio
LiDAR Light Detection And Ranging ST Space-Time
LiFi Light Fidelity STTC Space-Time Trellis Code
LOS Line-of-Sight UAV Unmanned Area Vehicle
LT Lubry Transform UE User Equipment
M2M Machine-to-Machine UV Ultraviolet
MAI Multi Access Interference UWC Underwater Communication
MBS Macrocellular Base Station UWOC Underwater Wireless Optical Communication
mmWave Millimeter-Wave V2X Vehicle-to-Vehicle, Vehicle-to-Infrastructure
MIMO Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output VANET Vehicular Ad-hoc Network
MPPM Multi-pulse Pulse Position Modulation VCSEL Vertical-Cavity Surface Emitting Laser
MZM Mach Zehnder Modulator VHO Vertical Handover
NIR Near Infrared VLC Visible Light Communication
NLOS Non-Line-of-Sight WDM Wavelength Division Multiplexing
NOMA Non –Orthogonal Multiple Access WiFi Wireless Fidelity
OCC Optical Camera Communication WLAN Wireless Local Area Network
OCDMA Optical Code Division Multiple Access WSN Wireless Sensor Networks

II. Overview of OWC

The wide range of electromagnetic (EM) frequency spectrum allows to extend the use of frequency
band for optical wireless communication purpose to tackle the congested spectrum of RF. An enormous
portion of upper band EM spectrum over microwave range is available for OWC for next generation
HetNets as an alternative solution to RF. Each optical frequency band of near IR (NIR), VL and UV
has their unique features and characteristics. Based on the related optical bands properties, different
OWC technologies are being developed. For example, infrared spectrum can be used for applications
where illumination is not required. On the other hand, UV frequency band support high speed data rate
for LOS and NLOS communication over short and distances. The OWC technologies offers an excellent
features of high data rate communication link that can used in a broad range of applications ranging
from ultra-short to long distance communications. Another important key features include unregulated
high optical bandwidth, low-energy consumption, greater level of data security, low deployment cost,
immune of interference from RF based networks, low bit error rate (BER) and ease of integration with
existing infrastructure. In contrast, the OWC performance degraded due to blocking obstacles along the
communication link including several other limiting factors. For ease of reference, notations used in this
paper are summarized in Table I.
A. OWC Technologies
Optical carrier transmission in the form of infrared (IR), visible light (VL), or ultra-violet (UV)
spectrum have distinctive properties enabling different key communications [9], [16], [52]. Terrestrial free
space optical communication systems (FSO) are operated at IR and VL frequency band. Whereas UV
spectrum supports high speed non line-of-sight (NLOS) and LOS optical communications [9]. Several
OWC technologies such as VLC, light fidelity (LiFi), optical camera communication (OCC), light de-
tection and ranging (LiDAR) and free space optical (FSO) communication are developed to meet the
widespread wireless demand. LiFi is a relatively new technology complementing WiFi that provides high
data rate transmission in the speed of light illumination aiming the same purposes to be served [24],
[53]. Light emitting diode (LED) or laser diode (LD) with an optical diffuser can be used as transmitters
and photodetector (PD) as receiver [54]. However, VLC and LiFi technologies can provide extreme
transmission speed for indoor applications and not effective for outdoor services due to obstacle of light.
Moreover, they cannot cover long range of communication distance. On the other hand, LEDs used
as transmitter and a camera or image sensor used as receiver in OCC sub-system under OWC [55],
[56]. OCC achieves a high SNR performance cancel out associated interference even under the outdoor
environments. Besides, it exhibits stable performance for longer link coverage whether the communication
take place in indoor or outdoor [56]. LiDAR [57]–[59] is a remote sensing 3D laser scanning method of a
target with high-resolution maps. A LiDAR device comprises of a LD, a scanner and a specialized global
positioning system (GPS) receiver. It capture information about a landscape and measure things using
high resolution sensors for analyzing conditions and characteristics. Recently, free space optical (FSO)
communication has emerged as a promising solution for next generation lightwave networking regardless
indoor or outdoor environments, despite the system is severely suffered by the channel impairments
such as atmospheric turbulence and pointing error effect between the optical transmitter and receiver
[60]–[63].
B. OWC Technologies using IR/VL/UV Spectrum
According to the transmission spectrum allocation [64], OWC can be classified into three categories,
namely infrared, visible light and ultraviolet. Near IR (NIR) band is widely operated for point-to-
point FSO communication including ultra-short (750 nm to 1450 nm), short (1400 nm to 3000 nm),
medium (3000 nm to 8000 nm), long (8000 nm to 15000 mm), and ultra-long distances (15000 nm
to 1 mm). However, ultra-short IR and short IR optical spectrum are used for long distance FSO
communications. Whereas, medium IR and long IR spectrum can be used in military applications and
thermal imaging purpose respectively. Besides, IR also commonly used in LiFi and OCC for short and
medium transmission distances; covers long distances for LiDAR technologies. The operating wavelength
of NIR is 760nm-1mm and particularly suitable for LOS communication where no illumination is needed.
However, it’s not always safe for human and limited application for NLOS communication. Secondly,
visible light (VL) is commonly used for VLC, LiFi and OCC covering short and medium distances.
In some limited cases, VL spectrum (operating wavelength of 360-760nm) is also used for FSO and
LiDAR over various broadcasting range [5]. The benefit of VL spectrum are: safe for human and can be
exploited for illumination and communication purpose simultaneously. Likewise NIR, VL is perfect for
LOS communication and exhibit poor data rate for NLOS transmission through reflection of light. Finally,
a considerable amount of interest in UV communication found for providing high speed NLOS/LOS
communication links. UV spectrum (operating wavelength of 10-400nm) is pertinent for short and
medium ranges in LiFi, ultra-short, short, medium, long and ultra-long coverage distance in FSO systems
[4].
C. Brief Description of OWC Technologies
Each of the OWC technologies (VLC, LiFi, OCC, LiDAR and FSO) have a distinctive features by
means of communication protocol, architecture, principle of operation, modulation techniques, channel
media, transmitting scheme, receiving system, and application scenario. Each technologies have some
advantages and disadvantages that are briefly discussed in this subsection. Typically, either light emitting
diodes (LEDs) or laser diodes (LDs) are used as physical transmitter whereas photodetectors (PDs) or
cameras are used as optical receivers. Besides, infrared (IR), visible light (VL) or ultra-violet (UV)
spectra are used as communication media. A substantial comparison among different OWC technologies
and RF systems is demonstrated in Table II.
1) Light Fidelity (LiFi): [24], [53], [65]–[79]
The operational principle of LiFi is almost similar to WiFi and can be classified as an nm-wave
communication. LiFi technology provides very high-speed data rate using light illumination. Likewise
VLC, LEDs or LDs is used as optical transmitters and PDs as optical receivers in LiFi that support high
speed wireless connectivity, localization and illumination as well. LiFi is a bidirectional communication
scheme whereas VLC can be either unidirectional or bidirectional. LiFi supports point-to-point, point-to-
multipoint, multipoint-to-multipoint communications and seamless user mobility like RF based wireless
systems. Therefore, LiFi is a mature wireless networking system enabling multiuser communications
within existing HetNets. LiFi uses either IR, VL or UV spectra in the backward path whereas VL light
spectrum is used for the forward path communication. A micro LED driven optical source has achieved
more than 3 Gbps [80] and a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) based light source can attain
56 Gbps speed [70]. The concept of attocells LiFi can shrink cell size through offloading huge amount of
data from highly congested RF systems. The purpose of illumination and communication are performed
simultaneously in an indoor environment. On the other hand, only communication is accomplished
for applications like controlling traffic signals, back lamps of vehicles and both communications and
illumination purpose are performed for applications like controlling street lamp and vehicle forward lamp
under an outdoor environments. In summary, the key features of LiFi over WiFi include stringent security,
high speed bit rate, cost effectiveness, and availability of light spectrum. In contrast, the performance
of LiFi is greatly suffered by sunlight and other outdoor ambient light sources. Moreover, the coverage
holes is key limitations of indoor LiFi networks. However, LiFi technology is not suitable for long-haul
communication and not effective in outdoor environments.
2) Visible Light Communication (VLC): [18]–[20], [26]–[33], [35], [38], [56], [67], [81]–[88]
VLC uses LEDs and LDs as transmitters and PDs as optical receivers and visible light as the communi-
cation media. VLC provides point-to-point, point-to-multipoint communications either in unidirectional
or bidirectional ways where mobility support is not mandatory. VLC technology can support 100 Gbps
data rate [19] and offers tenfold thousand times higher bandwidth capacity compared to RF technologies
[20]. However, the application scenarios are almost similar to LiFi for example office, residential areas,
roadsides, aircrafts, cars, etc. In addition, VL has many applications in indoor and outdoor environ-
ments for instance, V2X communications, smart lighting, hospitals, aviation, data offloading, acoustic
communications, smart display boards, location aware services, LANs, wireless backhaul connectivity
etc. Due to the fast switching capability of energy-efficient LED devices, VLC technology can be used
for illumination, localization and communication simultaneously. A transmission rate of 10 Gbps has
already been achieved using LED and 100 Gbps is attained using LDs at standard indoor illumination
[19]. Likewise LiFi, VLC is not suitable for outdoor applications as well as long distance communications.
It also creates coverage holes in indoor environments but it is harmless to human.
3) Optical Camera Communications (OCC): [25], [38], [49], [50], [89]–[96]
OCC uses LEDs as transmitters, camera as the receiving module and IR and VL spectra as commu-
nication media. OCC technology can be implemented in the existing hardware infrastructure. The data
signal transmitted from the multiple transmitters can be easily captured using a camera image sensor.
OCC system can support interference free transmission in outdoor environments through separating the
pixels of sunlight and other ambient sources [5]. The achievable data rate using OCC is 45 Mbps with
zero BER and 54 Mbps with a BER of 10−5 were demonstrated in [55]. However, VLC system can be
considered as the OCC scheme when it uses LEDs as optical sources and camera as receivers instead
of photodetectors. OCC can be easily overcome some limitations for example, short communication
distance, high attenuation of signal strength, interference due to sunlight and other ambient light
sources, background noises, and challenges in detection using PDs. OCC is very prominent for indoor
positioning, V2V, V2I, I2V communications, drone-to-drone communications, digital signage, sending
and detecting the control signals using body motion, non-interference communication, and good SNR
quality. In addition, OCC enable data sharing among mobile users, and perform motion detection and
recognition. In spite the benefit of stable performance of OCC in outdoor environments, the attainable
bit rate is comparatively small. Blocking of optical signals and light flickering due to low frame rates are
another example of OCC shortcomings.
4) Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR): [57]–[59], [97]–[103]
LiDAR is optical remote sensing technology that uses near infrared (NIR) and VL spectra to find the
image objects or other information of a target. The principle of LiDAR is similar to radio detection and
ranging (RADAR) used for localization and object detection. The key difference is LiDAR uses light wave
 TABLE II: Comparison of Different Wireless Communication Technologies [4], [9], [19], [108],
[119]–[124]
Factors LiFi VLC OCC FSO RF
Light Source LED/LD LED/LD LED LD Antenna
Receiver PD PD Camera LD Antenna
Modulation OOK, OFDM, OOK, OFDM, OOK, PAM, OOK, OFDM, ASK, PSK, QPSK,
CDMA CDMA CDMA QAM, SIK QAM, OFDM
Licensed No No No No Yes (except WiFi)
Spectrum
Link coverage 10m 20m 200m >1000km >100km(microwave link)
Environmental yes yes No yes yes
effect
Bit rate 100 Gbps (LD) 100 Gbps (LD) 54 Mbps 40 Gbps 6 Gbps
Spectrum IR/VL/UV VL VL IR/VL/UV Radio frequency
Path loss & Medium(LOS) [9] Medium(LOS) Low & zero [25] High & low [123] High & very high
interference & low & low [125]
Communication Bidirectional Unidirectional/ Unidirectional Bidirectional Bidirectional
topology Bidirectional
Security high high high high low
Key Poor performance Poor performance Poor data rate Performance severely High
limitations for NLOS for NLOS & short range degraded by interference
communication communication communication environmental issues

and RADAR uses microwave signal for energy transmission to hits an object. The reflected signal is back
to the receiver at the source location and then the distance, size, other characteristics are determined
analyzing the reflected signal. Laser beams are used to target dust, aerosols, non-metallic objects, rain,
clouds, etc. LiDAR technology can map the physical features with the help of very high resolution
laser beams and measure the properties of scattered light for 3D mapping. LiDAR system comprises of
laser sources, photodetectors, scanner and position and navigation sub-systems all are used to track the
position and movement of objects. The application of LiDAR includes transportation, precise location,
space surveys, architectural exploration, meteorology, military operations, robotics, forestry, etc.
5) Free Space Optical (FSO) Communication: [35], [40], [41], [60]–[63], [104]–[108], [109]–[118]
FSO is a subset of OWC technology, is typically used NIR spectrum as channel medium where the
attenuation levels are much lower. FSO can also be operated by using VL and UV spectra and do not
require illumination. Narrow beam of LD light sources are used to establish high speed communication
links instead of LEDs whereas PDs are used as optical receiver. Due to the coherent nature of laser
technology, the FSO signal can travel long distance enabling point-to-point communication with excellent
data rate. Optical power amplifiers can be used to increase the signal intensity of the modulated laser
output and then the laser light beam is collected and refocused before transmission. However, different
modulation schemes and channel coding are used to deliver a high optical power over a broad range of
temperature. Electronic circuits are needed to convert the PD output into voltage, low pass filter (LPF)
eliminates the noise levels and demodulator performs necessary process of sending the original data to the
destination. The application of FSO system include video surveillance, campus connectivity, backhauling
for cellular networks, LAN-to-LAN connectivity, inter-chip connectivity, underwater communication,
space communication, fiber backup, etc. Despite the multiple advantages of FSO systems over a wide
range of applications, the performance of FSO link suffers link reliability and high sensitivity to some
limiting factors for example, outdoor weather conditions (e.g., heavy rain, fog, smoke, storms, deep
clouds, snow, and scintillation), atmospheric turbulences and physical obstructions. This paper com-
prehensively explore the features, scope, performances, applications, system design, hybrid framework,
research challenges, open issues, and future directions in the subsequent sections. Table III presents the
key comparison among different RF techniques.
WiFi: [126]–[130] technology enables wireless area networking using radio frequency under a
particular range based on IEEE 802.11 standard. WiFi provides very high data rate communication
up to 8 Gbps with mobility support under both LOS and NLOS environments. The prime benefits
is unlicensed free spectrum and lower deployment cost. Conversely, the lower level security issue and
 TABLE III: Key Features of Different RF Technologies
Technology WiFi mmWave/Microwave UWC Heterogeneous networks Bluetooth
Free spectrum, High bandwidth & Wide range of Mobility support, Unlicensed spectrum,
low installation, high data rate, coverage, support high level of QoS support LOS/NLOS
Merits mobility support, Reduced antenna size LOS/NLOS support LOS/NLOS communications
enable NLOS at higher communications communications
communications frequencies
Low-level Suffer electromagnetic Poor bit rate, Limited Limited coverage,
Demerits security & high and other high propagation spectrum high interference,
interference interference delay low security

interference effect limited its performance.

Microwave link networks: [131]–[133] supports point-to-point communication with a beam of radio
signals to transmit information in microwave frequency range. A microwave communication is a promising
alternative to optical fiber link with high data rate particularly for remote areas. It can covers over 100
km link distance and bit rate of 12.6 Gbps is demonstrated in [131]. The performance of microwave
communication is suffered by electromagnetic interference, fog, rain and other atmospheric turbulence.
Cellular networks: [134]–[137] comprised of macrocell and small cells called heterogeneous networks
(HetNets) are widely deployed to provide high bit rate to users. A macrocell base station (BS) provide
a wide range of coverage and user mobility and supports a large number of user equipments (UEs). On
the other hand, small cells network (e.g., microcell, picocell, femtocell) extend the cellular connectivity
at the cell edge and filled up the coverage holes especially where the access is unavailable. However,
macrocell deployment is expensive and offers low data rate whereas limited RF spectrum is allocated
for small cell networks.
Bluetooth: [138]–[141] is a RF-based wireless technology provides data rate up to 2 Mbps using
short wavelength radio signal in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed frequency band. Bluetooth devices consume low
energy and support LOS/NLOS communications in a single hop topology. However, the performance
bluetooth communication suffers of low level security, short operational coverage and high interference
effect.
Underwater communication (UWC): [142]–[145] is an acoustic and RF based technology to transfer
data under water up to 20 km long range link distance and support both LOS/NLOS communications.
However, the performance of UWC is limited by low data rate, large propagation delay and high
sensitivity to the conditions of water.
D. Related Works
A number of curiosity driven research works are conducting on OWC based networks across worldwide
in order to addressing the aforementioned issues. The use of optical frequency spectrum complementary
to RF based wireless system provides some advantages for instance, low spectrum availability, secure
transmission, and low power consumption. Researchers across worldwide conducted essential literature
reviews [20], [146], [147] in several aspects of OWC field. Reference [5] presents an overview of OWC
focusing on operational principle of VLC, LiFi, LiDAR, FSO technologies highlighting the advantages and
range of application areas. Reference [20] reported a survey emphasizing on various modulation schemes,
dimming functions, filtering, equalization and beamforming for indoor VLC applications. Author in
[146] presents the research direction towards optical-wireless convergence pointing out the issues of the
conjunction of two different wireless and optical networks under dynamic bandwidth allocation. The
fundamental access technologies and related progress advancements are comprehensively discussed of
wireless access and optical broadband technologies [147]. Sevincer et al. [148] discuss the key challenges
of jointly performing the lighting and networking functions in the area of integrated FSO and VLC
technologies.
Reference [104] demonstrated BER evaluation considering multi access interference (MAI) and crosstalk
at the SIK receiver to assess SINR accompanied by BER varying system parameters such as code length,
number of simultaneous user. Results revealed that mutlti- wavelength OCDMA (MW-OCDMA) attains
superior BER performance oven single wavelength OCDMA FSO scheme. However, the power penalty
(PP) is more significant for higher values of jitter standard deviation and simultaneous users at a given
BER of 10−9 . Note that PP can be considerably reduced with the increment of code length and number
of wavelength for a given number of concurrent users. An analytical model of multi-wavelength OCDMA
wavelength division multiplexing (MW-OCDMA-WDM) FSO communication systems is conducted to
evaluate BER functionality and link capacity in the presence of aforementioned limiting factors for
free space applications [149]. Authors decompose the evaluation of BER into two categories; Q-ary
Optical PPM (Q-OPPM) with intensity modulation–direct detection (IM/DD) receiver considering the
impact of refractive index variation of the optical channel link without encoding. Secondly, an extensive
assessment of optical direct sequence (DS) CDMA encode and shift inverse keying (SIK) dual optical
decoder IM/DD based FSO communication is further investigated taking into considerations of strong
and weak atmospheric turbulence. Furthermore, the OCDMA FSO system performance in terms of
signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) as well as BER is carried out including the combined
effect of distinctive atmospheric turbulences, multi-access interference (MAI), cross talk, and pointing
error varying link length, transmission rate, cloud thickness, channel parameters, code length, and
number of simultaneous users. In addition, numerous transmitter and receiver diversity like SIMO, MISO
and MIMO configurations over the turbulent channel with OOK direct detection based Rake receivers
are also contemplated in order to evaluate power penalty sufferings, receiver sensitivity and capacity
improvement for a given BER of 10−9 . To the end, simulation results validate the effectiveness of MW-
OCDM-WDM hybrid scheme analytical model with a promising candidate for future terrestrial wireless
optical communication network. Reference [64] describes the theoretical limiting factors of FSO channels,
algorithmic-level of system design approach integrating diverse channel coding, adaptive modulation
schemes, spatial diversity and hybrid RF/FSO systems. Table IV summarizes the key contributions of
numerous research works conducted on different wireless optical schemes in the context of OWC.
III. Contributions
In this paper, we present a brief overview and extensive comparison of different optical wireless
technologies over RF based systems. The comprehensive analysis of different OWC technologies is
not the prime objective of this study. This article substantially covers the area of free space optical
communication (FSO) pertaining different issues including the effective solution for the successful de-
ployment of FSO systems. The application scenarios, principle of operations, transmitters, receivers,
channel characterization, modulation techniques, network architecture of FSO and hybrid FSO systems
highlighting the key advantages and disadvantages are clearly presented. For better illustration of FSO
schemes, a comparative surveys among other OWC technologies are demonstrated by means of communi-
cation distance, data rate, and modulation techniques. In addition, different important hybrid schemes
for instance RF/FSO, mmWave/FSO, acoustic/FSO, OCC/FSO and the research trends are clearly
manifested in this paper. For better illustration, Table V presents the related surveys/reviews of FSO
with a concise description of their major contributions. The key contributions of this survey paper can
be summarized as follows.
• Brief overview of optical wireless technologies in perspective of different systems (e.g., 5G/B5G,
IoT/IoE, underwater communications, etc.)
• The detailed scope of FSO and hybrid FSO technologies, related works and the recent research
trends are surveyed.
• FSO transceivers, channel modeling, QoS provisioning, radio over FSO (RoFSO) scheme, MIMO
FSO systems, multi-user communications, FSO transmission in physical and TCP layer, link budget,
reliability, high capacity backhaul networking, and next generation FSO systems are discussed.
• The challenging issues encountered and the potential mitigation techniques as well as future research
directions for FSO systems are extensively pointed out.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section IV presents the fundamentals of FSO communica-
tions, merits and demerits, wide range of application scenarios and the discussion on FSO transceiver. The
reliability of including link budget is demonstrated in Section V. The potential of mitigation techniques
to address the technical challenges are extensively discussed in Section VI. Subsequent sections describes
some attractive features of FSO technology pointing out on radio over FSO, mutiuser FSO, MIMO FSO,
and the prospect of future generation FSO technology. Furthermore, the summary of this survey and
the research challenges, future research directions and lessons learned are presented in Section XII and
XIII respectively. Finally, Section XIV concludes the review paper.
IV. Principle of free-space optical (FSO) communication
Free space optical communication (FSO) refers to point-to-point wireless optical transmission through
the unguided propagation media using infrared (IR) and visible light bands. In other words, FSO is a
LOS technology that uses eye-safe laser beams that provide optical data communication wirelessly in
the free space medium. FSO receivers are comprised of telescopic lenses that able to collect light stream
 TABLE IV: Related Works of OWC Technologies
OWC Major Contribution References
Systems
Application of LiFi components to hybrid LiFi/WiFi networks and clarify how LiFi takes VLC to [24]
realize
fully wireless network systems
Introduce dynamically resource allocation scheme, management and configuration in LiFi attocell [65]
access network
Presented the downlink performance of optical attocell networks in terms of SINR, outage [66]
probability, and
achievable throughput with OFDM technique
LiFi The key advantages of LiFi over WiFi is presented by means of data rate and flexibility operation [67]
Demonstrated LiFi based 8 Gbps transmission rate in the 5G communication [68]
Described the underlying principles of high performance indoor OWC focusing on throughput
maximization,
energy efficiency, hardware complexity integrating OFDM-MIMO transmission and non-linearity [69]
model
Experimented of 56 Gbps bit rate based on four level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) LiFi in [70]
outdoor environment
Investigated 100 Gb/s transmission capabilities using LDs at indoor level considering illumination [19]
constraints
Analyzed the accuracy of VLC based indoor positioning systems based on three methods namely, [150]
mathematical, sensor-assisted and optimization
Reviewed the system design, physical layer properties of VLC channel, adaptive modulation
formats, medium
access control, characteristics of transceiver, various visible light sensing, robustness to noise, [125]
direction of
increasing communication range, enhancement of spectral efficiency, concept of heterogeneous VLC [151]
for
short range communication, parallel VLC framework, and potential applications in indoors and [152]
outdoors,
deployment of challenges
VLC Examined resource and power allocation mechanisms, access point (AP) coordination techniques,
non-
orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) VLC networks, security concerns, fairness, energy efficiency, [153]
fairness,
secrecy rate, channel capacity evaluation, performance metrics, simultaneous information trans-
mission and
energy harvesting in VLC networks in the context of 5G communication
Discussed optimal resource allocation, fairness, spectral efficiency, achievable throughput and [154], [155]
interference management in a multi-user VLC system employing OFDMA technique
Pointed out the point-to-point ergodic channel capacity and SNR with respect to geometrical [156]
parameters for indoor VLC applications
Proposed a combined optical spectral efficient mobile fronthaul integrating low cost LED in the [157]
perspectives of spatial densified LTE networks to enable multi-tier coordination
Proposed a priority based dynamic channel reservation model focusing on call blocking probability [158]
and channel utilization considering real-time call arrival rates provisioning quality of service
Presented 55 Mb/s VLC signal transmission using optical communication image (OCI) sensor and [55]
optical OFDM with achievable BER <10−5
Examine the channel model according to link distance between transmitter and receiver for vehicle [159], [160]
to infrastructure varying the luminance of the central pixel projected from optical source
A downlink mobile camera based short-distance VLC is designed to examined the attainable data [161]
rate incorporating camera rotation compensation for multiuser access
OCC A vehicle localization scheme in an outdoor environment based on hybrid optical camera commu- [162]
nication and photogrammetry technique is proposed
Introduced the smartphones localization technique in an indoor environments by calculating the [163]
coordinate of receiver and distance from LED transmitters
Demonstrated head mounted display enabled human bond communication method of bidirectional [164]
communication among multiple users for visual applications in OCC
Introduce a new approach of LiDAR waveform decomposition and a new detection scheme for [57], [97]
occluded pedestrian based on human Doppler distribution
LiDAR Proposed a novel speed estimation system sensing visible light variation of the vehicle’s headlamps [98]
under different road scenarios
Presented BER evaluation of a multi-wavelength OCDMA FSO system with shift inverse keying [104]
(SIK) balanced direct detection receiver and optical encoder taking into consideration of pointing
error
Multi access interference (MAI) and crosstalk at the SIK receiver are assumed to assess SINR [105]
accompanied by BER varying system parameters such as code length, number of simultaneous
user considering atmospheric turbulence
FSO Analyzed adaptive acquisition system that perform better for the low probability of detection based [106]
on shotgun scanning approach in FSO
A detector array based receiver is illustrated in deep space for FSO in order to minimize pointing [107]
loss and improvement of probability error under low SNR condition
Examined the feasibility of vertical backhaul/fronthaul framework where the traffic transport [165]
between the access and core networks via point-to-point FSO links under different weather
conditions
 TABLE V: Comparison of Related Surveys/Reviews on FSO Communications
Reference Year Journals/Book Chapters Major Contribution
Explore the VLC and FSO technologies and survey the potential
IEEE Communications of combined implications in a single field of study. Present different
[148] 2013
Surveys & Tutorials scenarios of limiting factors on system performance and function-
ality of light sources.
Review the applications of FSO, optical link budget, and empirical
Contemporary Issues in
[166] 2014 study of BER performance in a particular city considering few
Wireless Communications
constraints
IEEE Communications Survey FSO link modeling, modulation formats, spatial diversity,
[64] 2014
Surveys & Tutorials cooperative transmission and hybrid RF/FSO systems
Demonstrate the characteristics of different classified subnetwork
Digital Communications
[167] 2017 FSO systems and several design factors including channel model-
and Networks
ing, network topology design, eye safety issue
IEEE Communications Survey numerous challenges encountered in FSO uplink/downlink
[168] 2017
Surveys & Tutorials space communications and inter-satellite transmission
Overview the potential challenges in FSO communications and
Optics and Lasers in Engi-
[169] 2017 solutions including cooperative relay networks and aspects of three
neering
different channel coding
Survey different wireless optical access technologies, and provide
[5] 2018 IEEE Access
details of these technologies explicitly
Review on pointing, acquisition, tracking, and (PAT) techniques
IEEE Communications
[170] 2018 used in FSO systems under line of sight (LOS) and non-LOS
Surveys & Tutorials
scenarios
Optical and Wireless Tech- Addressing the factors related to channel impairments in FSO
[171] 2018
nologies applications
Review the FSO channel limitations, temporal and spatial chal-
[172] 2019 IET Communications
lenges, and possible mitigation techniques
Survey multi-level FSO network classifications compared to exist-
IEEE Communications
[173] 2019 ing ones and different FSO applications including heterogeneous
Surveys & Tutorials
FSO networks
Intelligent Communica- Overview of challenges and possible mitigation techniques in FSO
[174] 2020
tion, Control and Devices communications briefly
Comprehensive survey dedicated to FSO wireless systems in com-
parison with other optical wireless technologies, discusses various
This Paper issues related to wire range of FSO challenges, mitigation methods,
reliability and link design aspects, extensive applications scenario
incorporating next-generation functionalities

and transmit digital information to the destination in the speed of Gbps range. The availability of broad
optical spectrum extends the opportunity to tackle a massive volume of data capacity. FSO is a promising
alternative to radio relay link as the light travels faster through air than glass. Generally, outdoor FSO
links operate in the VL and UV bands, near IR and VL bands are used in indoor and underwater
FSO communication [173]. FSO operating at extremely high frequencies (i.e. short wavelength) make
the photodetectors immune to multipath signal fluctuations whereas RF networks are highly susceptible
to multipath fading. Multiple digital signals such as internet data, voice, image/video, computer files,
etc. are first converted to light signals using optical transmitter, then modulated by a suitable scheme,
traveling multiplexed signal through the FSO channel in optical domain, received the incoming signal
using optical photodetector and finally transmitted demultiplexed signals towards the destination after
necessary electronic switching.
A. Advantages and Disadvantages of FSO
The transmission window for NIR wavelength ranging from 700 nm to 1600 nm, whereas, the wave-
length for RF based system lies between 30 mm to 3 m. Therefore, optical wavelength is thousand times
smaller than RF wavelength; this makes the operation bandwidth for FSO system in order of THz offers
extremely high bandwidth than that of a conventional RF carrier. Typically, the allowable bandwidth
for RF based communications can be around 20% of the radio carrier frequency. On the other hand, even
if the bandwidth is considered 1% of optical carrier frequency (1016 Hz), the allowable bandwidth is 100
THz implying enormous information carrying capacity over mmWave and microwave RF communication
systems.
FSO systems are typically use very narrow spectrum laser beams as carrier signals that provides high
speed data communication between two fixed nodes over distances up to few kilometers, inherent security
(i.e., light is confined within a certain defined zone), large reuse factor and immunity to electromagnetic
interference with other communication network or electronic equipment. Unlike radio waves, optical beam
cannot penetrate walls, free from inter-cell interference and do not require frequency coordination. Hence,
the same optical beam can reused for different purposes. Due to the broad optical carrier bandwidth,
FSO scheme enables extreme level of data rates in compared to RF counterparts. Moreover, the coherent
and low divergence nature of the optical beam allows a number of parallel FSO links installation at a
given site. Experimental outcomes of OWC systems [175] in terms of bit rate are tightly competing
with generic fiber optic system. Some other few advantages of optical spectrum over the other frequency
band, large unregulated bandwidth, very high SNR, ease of conjunction into the existing arrangement.
Notably, FSO scheme is cheaper than conventional fiber optic link since the frequency band occupied
by FSO technology over 300 GHz is unlicensed worldwide and hence requires no license fees. Optical
wireless transmission like FSO is immune from side lobes and this invisible light does not cause any health
hazards. Easy and quick deployment, lower installation and maintenance cost compared to the buried
fiber grid connectivity makes the FSO systems more attractive. Unlike RF signals, optical components
consume less power and exhibit ultra-low latency.
The beam divergence is directly proportional to wavelength and follow inverse relationship to the
aperture diameter. As a result, the optical beam is much narrower compared to the RF carrier which
leads to increased intensity of the received signal for a given laser transmit power. Besides, the antenna
size for FSO communications is incredibly lower because of lower optical wavelength to attain the same
gain where the antenna gain varies inversely proportional to the square of the wavelength. Therefore,
the power requirement, antenna diameter and mass is considerably lower than RF wireless systems.
In addition to these benefits, the directivity and gain of FSO antennas are also remarkably higher
due to smaller wavelength. However, longer optical wavelength wireless link is less affected by pointing
induced fading [168]. Therefore, the choice of wavelength is an important design parameter by means
of link performance as well as detector sensitivity. Furthermore, eye safe issue, economic factor and
the availability of transceiver’s components greatly affect the selection of wavelength in FSO design.
In a nutshell, the selection of operating wavelength depends on the trade-off between pointing errors
and receiver sensitivity. Unlike RF signal, the optical beam cannot be detected by spectrum analyzers.
Moreover, FSO transceiver are easy to deploy, lightweight, compact, easily expandable.
Despite the potential advantages of FSO communication, FSO networking is not yet mature as their
RF counterpart because of some limitations. The performance of FSO links are intensively deteriorates
the link reliability due to atmospheric turbulence effects such as heavy rain, fog, snow, cloud and
pointing stability in wind. Some other limiting factors including beam dispersion, background light
radiation (e.g., sunlight) and shadowing effect degrades the system performance pertaining to bit error
rate (BER), SINR, ergodic capacity, outage probability. Uneven distribution of temperature on the earth,
velocity variation of wind and atmospheric pressure due to irregular flow of wind causes atmospheric
turbulence. Such atmospheric circulation affect the optical beam propagation along the FSO link both
in tempo-spatial domain. Atmospheric turbulence causes phase shifts of the transmitted optical beams
resulting in signal distortion is referred to optical aberrations. Scintillation is an intensity distortion
of propagating light pulses caused by the atmospheric turbulence [176]. Laser beam passing through
scintillation experience irradiance fluctuation even in short distance communication. Moisture, aerosols,
temperature and pressure variations generate refractive index deviations in air density known as eddies.
However, the refractive index change of air causes wave front phase perturbation of propagating optical
light. As a consequence, some other wave fronts having different phase causes an interference and
amplitude variation. Therefore, the received optical signal fluctuating randomly and causes a distorting
wave front of the isophase surface. Note that the optical laser beam will bends when the dimension of
turbulence eddies are bigger than the beam radius. In addition, constructive and destructive interference
due to arrival time variations of multiple wave fronts resulting temporal fluctuations of the light intensity
at the receiver end.
Pointing error/jitter is another noticeable parameter of FSO systems that can be defined as the
digression between the expected antenna position and its actual position. In other words, mechanical
misalignment of FSO transceivers and mechanical vibration causes an error of tracking systems. Owing
to the strong nature of directional beam of FSO transmitter, the problem involves in pointing, acquisition
and tracking (PAT) technique because each optical transceiver must be precisely aligned simultaneously
at the point of communication. Any unwanted objects in LOS links break the communication between
transmitter and receiver. Clouds is another important limiting factor which is collection of water droplets
(i.e. excess vapor condenses of tiny particles) and crystals suspended in air. Clouds imposes the atten-
uation, beam scattering and absorption during the laser beam travelling through the medium. On the
other hand, non-selective scattering due to rainfall and heavy fog is one of the major impairment of FSO
link reliability. A larger size of rain droplets and a high dense fog causes reflection and refraction of light
beam [177].
B. FSO Classifications
With the augmentation of wireless devices and diverse type of multimedia services impose a massive
demand on RF spectrum where most sub-bands are licensed. As a consequence, RF band is outstrip-
ping supply progressively which is also fundamentally restricted in capacity and cost; the paradigm of
shifting the upper portions of the electromagnetic spectrum for wireless communications has become the
paramount concern. Over the past few decades, the applications of FSO is remained confined to military
short range applications and inter-satellite links in space applications [178]. With the introduction of
FSO communications products and wireless optical terrestrial links offers a variety range of services
to cope with ever-growing demands of higher data rates [179]–[183]. Development of efficient wireless
technology such as FSO is essential for heterogeneous building communication networks and can be
deployed in different applications ranging from outdoor inter-building connections to satellite links.
According to the geographical location and link distance, FSO technology can be employed in four
different scenarios: atmosphere, indoor, space and underwater. However, atmospheric environment can
be considered as outdoor terrestrial FSO communication, FSO home networking include the indoor com-
munications and space scenario is classified under FSO space communication. Terrestrial FSO networks
establish long-distance point-to-point outdoor optical communications following LOS mechanism over
atmospheric turbulent channels. This FSO communication has offer a promising potential for wireless
telecommunications especially for broadband internet access. Terrestrial FSO is emerging solution for
last-mile access. Although fibre connectivity has been widely used for fibre to the home (FTTH) service,
but still there are many end users are not connected to FFTH service due to geographical limitations.
This technology enables high bandwidth connection for remote users over a long communication distance.
In other words, terrestrial FSO technology establish a bridge for geographically separated premises, for
instance, inter-building or community-to-communality communications without incorporating optical
fibre cable. Most importantly, the integration of terrestrial FSO with wireless RF networks minimize
the capacity and scalability problems with greater level of QoS. Note that the spectral efficiency and
fairness of RF wireless networks severely attenuated when the hop length and hop count is large.
On the other hand, FSO home networking (FSO-HN) are commonly used for indoor broadband wireless
communications either in house, building, or office. FSO-HN are used in a short-range communication
ranging from few meters to tens of meter. The hardware is normally portable, inexpensive, lightweight
and facilitates eye safety issue. Multiple small cell terminals connected via short-range optical wireless
links are installed in the building. Unlike radio signal, optical light cannot penetrate walls, hence, each
small cell is confined to a particular room and all the terminals are connected to high-speed backbone
infrastructure. The optical beams can be reused as each terminal is free from mutual interference from
the neighboring cells. Compared to non-LOS link, LOS FSO technology achieve high throughput and
extremely low BER due to better beam steering mechanism and power budget. A diffused light source
is commonly used in indoor place to disperse light beams in non-LOS links. Taking the full advantage of
multipath propagations caused by the different objects such as ceiling, furniture, walls, and floor, diffused
links (or non-LOS links) exhibit more robust performance [167]. However, a diffused link support lower
bit rate in comparison with LOS links and there exist a trade-off between link reliability and network
capacity.
FSO space links can be further categorized into inter-orbital links, inter-satellite links and deep space
links. FSO technology can be used as a global space backbone for satellite communications with high
quality of data services. With the augmentation of FSO technique in downlink space communications
(satellite-to-earth), the end users can avail the wide range of benefits regardless the receiver is in moving
(e.g. airplane, cruise shift, moving vehicles, etc.) or stationary. The limitation of cellular networks
coverage in the remote areas can be overcome thanks to broadband FSO-based satellite communications.
Recently, acoustic communications in underwater environments is thoroughly investigated aiming to
ensure reliability considering all the limiting factors.
Based on the link coverage, the classification of FSO can be summarized as:
• Ultra-short distance: integrated chip-to-chip communication in nm distance of multi-chip packages
[184], [185]
• Short-distance: wireless personal area networks and underwater wireless communications [142], [186],
[187]
• Medium-distance: indoor visible light communication technology for wireless local area networks
(WLANs) [188], [189], vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and V2X infrastructures [190], [191]
• Long-distance: inter-building communications [61], [63], [64]
• Ultra-long distance: satellite links (e.g., inter-satellite, satellite-ground, satellite-airplane) [170], [192]–
[194]
 Fig. 1: A few applications of FSO systems.

C. Applications of FSO
FSO systems have primarily attracted as it provides efficient solution of the bottlenecks of last mile
problem filled up the gap between optical fiber infrastructure and the destination users. To fully utilize
the existing setup, telecom operators are investing considerable investments to fiber backbone and
expansion of FSO links as well accompanied by the tremendous growth at the network boundary where
end subscribers easily get access with high speed systems. FSO schemes can be promising alternative
in cases where buried optical fiber connectivity is costly and/or infeasible. A few applications of FSO
systems are illustrated in Fig. 1. Some attractive applications of FSO systems are briefly described in
the following.
• Inter-building (e.g., Campus/Enterprise/Residential) connectivity:
Buildings in different infrastructures (i.e., school campus, office, corporations) are experiencing het-
erogeneous traffic demand (e.g., voice, internet data, fax, and multimedia services) overwhelmingly.
FSO technology can setup a path among multiple buildings in certain areas supporting extreme
level of data speed in a cheaper way without installing dedicated fiber links. FSO can be used as
high speed data interconnection bridge among geographically separated buildings (i.e. enterprise
connectivity) for example, ship-to-ship, and community to community communications.
• Video surveillance:
Wireless video monitoring are widely employed in military applications, commercial and public
safety which provides high throughput than conventional ones. FSO systems exhibits a good choice
of alternative to allow ultra-quality of video transmission.
• Backhaul for cellular networks:
A communication among cellular base stations (i.e., base transceiver station, controller section and
mobile switching center) involves wireline connections by means of T1/E1 lines and microwave
communications for wireless link. The deployment of FSO technology offers a backup path for
extended bandwidth-intensive high speed cellular services. As a consequence, FSO can be deployed
for SONET rings connectivity and core infrastructure in metropolitan area.
• Broadcasting and disaster monitoring:
Nowadays live events broadcasting such as sports, high definition (HD) services, television crime and
ceremonies report, covering critical news in remote zones, signals from cameras are needed to be sent
a central node. FSO system is capable of satisfying the high quality of transmission (throughput
demand) among different nodes to end users. On the other hand, temporary FSO links can be
readily installed in disaster situations to monitor terrorist attack, emergency situations and natural
disasters. Besides, FSO links can be readily deployed in the area where no wireline connections are
not feasible.
• Security:
Cyber security and computational security under the realization of quantum computers world attain-
ing deep attention for example, transfer secure electronic money transfer. Quantum cryptography
provides an unconditional security which are generally connected with fiber optic infrastructure.
Unwanted users cannot hack the information, since FSO signal cannot penetrate an obstacle.
• Last mile solution:
Nowadays, a majority of the buildings are connected via coaxial cable and fiber optic cable, there
are still many end-users do not have access to the optical fiber infrastructure (FTTH). FSO commu-
nication can be considered as a paramount solution for remote end users (e.g., users in rural areas)
with high speed connection of Gbps range over a large link distance. FSO can provide instant service
to fiber optic users during laid off their existing fiber connectivity. Moreover, broadband internet
services can be readily provided in isolated area via FSO link where it is very hard to achieve
conventional access technologies.
• IoT and 5G:
IoT extends the widespread internet connectivity beyond the conventional multimedia devices en-
abling to exchange information between themselves and external environment. The dense deploy-
ment of IoT devices demand high bandwidth, high bit rate, security, low latency, and electromagnetic
interference free data transmission. The implementation of 5G technology in IoT, high speed FSO
links extends the coverage area and the overall system performance by means of spectral efficiency
and robust data transmission capability [195]. In other words, the integration of FSO technology
with IoT over 5G connectivity can satisfy the requirement to realize global IoT.
• Satellite communications:
FSO technology can be effectively deployed in space applications together with radio astromy and re-
mote sensing. FSO transmission scheme provides power efficient large distance inter-satellite orbital
links with better receive sensitivity. Orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams have the intense level
of data carrying capability providing an enhanced system capacity and spectral efficiency. Therefore,
FSO is a preferred choice for attaining ultra information carrying capacity using OAM beams in
deep space communications.
• High-capacity backhaul network:
A backhaul network establish a bridge between access network and core network. A high-speed
backhaul connectivity is a compelling part while exchanging a large volume of data information
between access network (AN) and core network (CN) in 5G/B5G or IoT perspectives. Densification
of cellular networks by means of mass deployment of small cells to increase frequency utilization
as well as system capacity. The deployment of additional infrastructure in the access networks
are considered in densely populated areas where an intensive level of traffic volume is generated.
Furthermore, the shorter user-base station distance ensure the greater level of attainable throughput
due to lower multipath fading in 5G/B5G networks. To address the network densification issue, the
facility of high-speed FSO connectivity guarantee the backhaul densification. In addition, a high
capacity backhaul is essential for long-range applications such as inter-building communications,
inter-city connectivity and satellite-to-satellite links. Unless the high capacity backhaul network,
the entire communication will be worthless even though the AN or CN supports the Gbps com-
munication equipment, hence, leads to bottleneck in the system. Current backhaul networks are
equipped with dedicated fiber optic infrastructure, coaxial cable, copper, microwave and mmWave
links, and sometimes satellite paths [2], [196]. Together with the wired optical fiber networks, FSO
system offers an excellent features to solve low-capacity backhauling issue effectively especially
in long distance outdoor backhaul link. FSO enabled high speed backhaul networks provides the
connectivity in far distance areas for example, underwater, space communication, isolated island,
etc. Moreover, the latency is less than one millisecond and achievable data rate of 40 Gbps for FSO
point-to-point communication technology. In summary, FSO systems has the potential to handle
high traffic volume, allowing massive telecommunications and IoT devices, least power consumption,
 cost effectiveness, and greater spectral efficiency in the backhaul network platform.
It is widely acceptable that the throughput of optical fiber cable is the maximum among all other
related technologies till now. Since both fiber optic technology and FSO systems use the similar type
of optical transmitter and receiver, so attaining similar throughput performance will possible in the
forthcoming future. Unlike NLOS link, FSO LOS link achieves higher system capacity because of
the absence of multipath propagation delays and effective power link budget. On the other hand, a
diffused light sources is used for the NLOS links to disperse a light beam for multipath propagation
caused by the reflections of different obstacles. Thus, NLOS links are more robust when dealing with
objects along communication paths. However, increasing the FSO backhaul capacity is a challenging
task with the enormous growth of traffic volume.
• Device-to-device (D2D), machine-to-machine (M2M), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X), multipoint-
to-multipoint, end-to-end communication mechanisms can be applied in healthcare, railway stations,
shopping malls and industry. Scalability limitations of RF-based networks for instance, fairness and
throughput are limited for the large hop number, can be easily overcome with high speed FSO
network over existing wireless mesh connections.
D. FSO in IoT, 5G and B5G
5G communication offers enormous smart device connectivity, ultra-high throughput, extremely low
latency, ultra-high encryption, incredibly low power consumption, and ultra-level quality of service [197],
[198]. 5G network and beyond are now widely developed including nested small cells in heterogeneous
(i.e. a combination of macrocell, microcell, picocell and femtocell) configuration in order to increase
network capacity in an effective way with desired quality of experience (QoE) [199]. To ensure high
QoE under an intensive data demand and wide range of large device connectivity, 5G/B5G networks are
anticipated to ultra-dense HetNet deployment. 5G/B5G networks has the capability to support up to
10 Gbps downlink data rate which will be ten to 100 times bigger than 4G. The number of connected
electronic devices is hundred times higher than 4G LTE networks results in thousand times volume
data [1]. 5G technology consume 90% less power compared to 4G networks and provide extremely low
latency in fraction of millisecond. B5G networks are expected to provide four times spectral efficiency
over 4G networks and lower network deployment cost. Offloading massive volume of data to indoor
small cells from the macrocell is another significant characteristic of 5G/B5G networks [199], [200]. Fig.
2 demonstrates the implications of FSO transmission in 5G/B5G wireless cellular networks and Fig. 3
presents the application of FSO in massive IoT platforms.
FSO support high speed bit rate 5G communication together with high-capacity backhauling and the
massive connectivity of IoT. Energy consumption is a key concern for designing a large scale 5G cellular
and IoT infrastructure in where FSO helps to curtail additional energy expenditure in comparison to
tradition RF systems [201]. Some other demands of IoT systems are low implementation cost, high level
of security, large energy efficiency, cost effective and support a huge number of smart devices. FSO
technology is capable to support massive smart device connection in IoT paradigm through low power
LED or LD technologies. A reliable connection by means of strong encryption can be assured using FSO
technology [202].
E. FSO in Space Communications
With the advancement of space and FSO technology, satellite communications including uplink (i.e.
ground-to-satellite), downlink (i.e. satellite-to-ground), inter-satellite links, and deep space communica-
tions incorporating FSO have received considerable attention among researchers and industries [168],
[203]. The losses incurred though the atmosphere is much higher for FSO uplink compared to the
downlink communications as the optical beams are spread and distorted at the ground-based point. The
variation of temperature, concentration of aerosol particles, and encountered air pressure with altitude
affect the laser beam propagation in the passage through atmosphere. This losses can be defined as
absorption (i.e. absorbers may be the water molecules, CO2 gas) and scattering loss. Note that absorption
loss and scattering loss (dB/km) is a function of wavelength. The scattering loss is more noticeable
when wavelength is below 1 um especially ultraviolet or visible range for FSO communications. Thus,
the selection of transmission window (e.g, ultra-short IR, short IR) is a crucial FSO design parameter.
Rayleigh scattering is produced when the atmospheric particles are comparatively smaller to the optical
wavelength and Mie scattering is generated for vice-versa [168]. Air molecules and haze particles typically
causes Rayleigh scattering, in contrary, aerosol, rain, snow, fog particles are the primary contributors
for Mie scattering. The application of FSO in space communications are explicitly presented in Fig. 4.
Under the presence of dense fog (visibility is below 50m), the signal losses can be higher than 350
dB/km [204]. In such condition, high power lasers operating at the third transmission window help
Fig. 2: FSO Backhaul Connectivity for Cellular Networks.

Fig. 3: FSO in IoT Platform.

 Fig. 4: FSO in Space Communications.

to uplift the link reliability. It is obvious that the heavy rain droplets leads to higher attenuation loss.
According to [205], the heavy rain (25 mm/hr) incur attenuation of ten times than the light rain droplets
(2.5 mm/hr) ranging from 1 dB/km to 10 dB/km for 1500 nm wavelength. The hybrid RF/FSO systems is
a suitable choice to enhance the link availability under this condition. On the other hand, the attenuation
due to snow particles are lies between rain droplets and fog particles. Atmospheric turbulence induced
particles called eddies with different size and refractive indices generated beam wandering effect when
the size of eddies are greater than beam radius. In contrast, smaller eddies size in comparison to the
beam dimension also resulting in tempo-spatial irradiance fluctuations of the transmitted signal at the
receiver end [206]. Turbulent cells also degrade the coherence properties of the optical beam and hence,
create interference.
The beam divergence is an important factor of FSO uplink design in space communications. A beam
divergence is incurred before the receiver aperture due to diffraction of light. Some fraction of laser
beams are not collected at the receiver hence, causes beam divergence loss or geometrical loss. This loss
considerably increases with the transmission distance regardless the diameter of receiver aperture. In
such case, a narrow beam laser source is preferable and receive diversity techniques can be employed.
It is worth to mention that sky radiance can be happened both daytime and night time which is driven
by the altitude of receiver, cloud thickness, atmospheric particles concentration and solar irradiance.
In particular, the magnitude of sky radiance is primarily depends on the geometrical position of sun,
earth and the FSO receiver. Pointing loss may happen due to small vibration of satellite, slight stress
on mechanical or electronic devices, or jitter platform. A little misalignment between the transceivers
could cause FSO link failure, thus, it is very essential to control LOS directivity with narrow beam
divergence [207]. In addition, beam wandering effect may shift transmitted beam from the propagation
path that cause pointing loss. In any cases pointing error can remarkable reduce the received optical
power as well as SINR resulting in high BER and increase the chances of FSO link failure. Proper care
must be taken of vibration free FSO devices installation and maintain adequate bandwidth control to
compensate residual jitter. Pointing error is more apparent for lower earth orbital (LEO) satellite than
GEO satellite [207]. Pointing error considerably degrades the system performance in terms of BER and
outage particularly at visible wavelength. Furthermore, noise in the tracking sensors and mechanical
vibration of satellite causes tracking error. A compensation technique to address pointing and tracking
errors for the uplink FSO space communications is presented in literature [208].
The presence of thick cloud disrupt the signals or occasionally completely block the link regardless
uplink or downlink communications. These intermediate disruptions can last from fraction of minutes
to few hours based on the geolocation and season. The opaque clouds could lead severe attenuation as
big as tens of dB. The tempo-spatial diversity deployment can combat the optical beam loss due to
attenuation. Owing to effect of atmospheric turbulence, the optical signals fluctuating at the focal plane
of photodetector or leads to spot motion. This effect is known as fluctuation of arrival angle that can be
mitigated by implementing fast beam steering mirror or adaptive optics. The aforementioned limiting
factors for FSO space communications can be handle by proper choice of system design parameters for
instance, operating wavelength, beam divergence, intensity of transmitted power, transceiver field of view
(FOV).
Inter-satellite space FSO links are not affected by weather and atmospheric limitations as the satellite
obits are far distant of atmosphere layer; however, they are restricted by other key challenges such as
acquisition and tracking (AT), stability of satellite station, Doppler shift, and background radiations.
Coherent detection method is more appropriate over direct detection for inter-satellite FSO commu-
nications since it covers longer link distance. Cooperative frequency tuning between the transmitted
signal and local oscillator (LO) is adopted to combat the impact of Doppler shift. Coherent tacking
scheme can be implemented to combat AT including background radiations. Coherent technique either
homodyne or heterodyne maintain power efficiency of the link and offer good receiver sensitivity with
lower level of power penalty [209]. The concept of detector arrays contemplating in deep space FSO
communications helps to collect the light signals even if misalignment exist between transceivers [107].
Bashir [107] pointed out that a receiver detector array outperforms a lot better in terms of probability
of bit error, pointing error and SINR than a single detector system.
F. FSO Transceiver
FSO communication can be broadly categorized into three stages: optical transmission through the
atmosphere that follows the Beer-Lambert’s law, channel link where different noises and turbulences are
accumulated, and receiver section equipped with electronic devices to process the received signal.
1) FSO Transmitter: Optical transmitter comprised of a light source, a modulator, optical amplifier
(optional) and beam forming mechanism. The incoming information data bits are optionally encoded
before modulation. The modulated light beams (optical intensity) are boosted using optical pre-amplifier.
Then, the laser beams are collected and refocused via beam forming optics before transmission. The most
commonly used optical sources such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs) offer some
distinctive advantages and disadvantages of FSO systems based on their applications.
Advantages:
With the recent development of solid-state lightning, high intensity LEDs are replacing fluorescent
and incandescent lamps. Several key advantages provided by LEDs are greater energy efficiency, longer
lifecycle, lower heat production, minimal usage of toxic materials for manufacturing, and better color
interpretation [125]. In addition, LEDs are capable of faster switching in different light intensities and
this functionality makes the LEDs to use as high-speed OWC transmitter and highly efficient optical
source simultaneously. On the other hand, laser sources are highly monochromatic and produced a single
wavelength output. LDs act as a coherent light sources in where all the emitted light spectrum follow the
same direction, same manner and at the same time. The coherent characteristics (i.e. concentrated and
intensive unidirectional nature) of LDs travel longer distance and provide a high data rate transmission
with less interference compared to LED sources.
Disadvantages:
Incoherent nature of low power light emission is the prime limitation of LED light source which can
cause significant interference with natural and artificial light sources. Because of narrow aperture of LD,
only point-to-point communication take place. In some cases LDs are not a suitable choice for mobile
communication due to thermal effect of radiation in human body, cost and color mixing complication
[5].
However, semiconductor laser diode is typically used in the FSO systems due to intense optical
power operating, although high power LEDs with beam collimators are commercially available in the
market. In addition, LDs provide wide modulation bandwidth over a wide range of temperature. Another
important factor for laser transmitter is eye safety issue. On the other hand, LEDs are preferred for indoor
applications with low data rate. LEDs are extended sources that cover broad emitters and can be operated
safely even at high power. However, VCSEL sources are commonly used for first transmission window
operated on 850 nm, and Fabry-Perot and distributed feedback (DFB) lasers ae used for operation at
third WDM transmission window of 1550 nm [64]. In order to ensure eye safety from radiation exposure,
LDs are allowed for transmission at 1550 nm that are considered for long-range communications. Another
wavelength of 10 µm has been recently considered in FSO systems that have improved transmission
characteristic through deep fog [210]. Apart from this, currently UVs are also considered for FSO
communication owing to robust feature against pointing errors and beam blockage. UV spectra exhibits
lower sensitivity to sunlight and other background interference [211].
2) FSO Receiver: At the optical receiver, the radiated optical signal in terms of photons are collected
optically and the photodetector (PD) converts the photons into electrical current by means of trans-
impedance circuit. The FSO receiver handles the detected electrical current through electronic devices
and recover the original transmitted data signals. In other words, the converted optical to electrical signal
is then passed through a low-pass filter (LPF) in order to restrict background noise and thermal noise
levels. Positive-intrinsic-negative (PiN) PD and avalanche photodetector (APD) are widely used in FSO
systems. PiN PDs are low cost, can operate in low-bias and tolerate wide range temperature fluctuations
that are normally used for low data rate and short range FSO links [173]. The performance of PiN PD
is limited by the thermal noise. Compared to PIN PDs, APDs have high multiplication gain (thanks to
the process of impact ionization) as well as improved SNR as it operating high reverse bias and hence,
APDs are preferred choice for high data rate and long distance FSO systems. Although APD shows
superior performance, they are expensive, high power consumption, and avalanche gain is temperature
sensitive [64].
Solid state devices having good quantum efficiency are widely used in commercial FSO systems
operating in commonly available wavelengths such as 850 nm, 1550 nm. Si PDs are suitable for operation
at shorter wavelength around 850 nm, whereas InGaAs PDs have maximum sensitivity in terms of very
low transit time, rapid response detectors around at 1550 nm. With the recent advancement of graphene
materials, plasmonic nanomaterials, two dimensional materials, quantum dots nanoparticles facilitates
to develop ultra-speed photodetectors over a wide range of wavelengths [212], [213].
The deployment of optical amplifiers (OAs) in the long distance multi-hop FSO communication has
been proposed to improve link performance [214]. Erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is a preferred
choice over semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) operating at 1550 nm wavelength. However, the optical
amplifier generates amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise which can deteriorates the receiver
performance in terms of achievable SNR. Nevertheless, OAs has the potential to cope with electronic
noise and reduce the scintillation effect in the case of weak turbulence [215].
Different types of associated noises at the receiver comprises of dark current noise, shot noise (also
called quantum noise) and thermal noise. The PD dark current noise can be ignore most of the practical
cases. Another noise at the receiver causes photocurrent fluctuations called laser relative intensity noise
(RIN) results from the instability of LDs intensity. Likewise PD dark current, RIN imposes a negligible
impact on the receiver SNR performance [216]. Primarily the two main noise sources shot noise and
thermal noise affecting the receiver performance if the background illumination is considered negligible.
A PIN PD is normally thermal noise limited. In contrast, APD based receiver sensitivity depends either
of the noise in accordance with impact ionization gain and load resistance. However, the thermal noise
is a function of load resistance that originates from the electronic circuitry, which can be modeled
as a zero mean Gaussian random noise. In contrary, shot noise arises due to random fluctuations of
electrical currents flowing in PD or background radiations which can be modeled by Poisson process
[217]. However, the shot noise can be approximately modeled as a Gaussian process if the number of
absorbed photons are comparatively large. In most of the FSO applications, the shot noise distribution
can be approximated by a Gaussian process [218].
V. Reliability of FSO communication systems
A reliability issues is an important characteristic for any sort of communication systems. The FSO
systems assure a high level of SINR both for indoor users and long-distance outdoor communications
addressing associated shortcomings. Besides, FSO networks opens the opportunity of provisioning ad-
ditional tier network which inevitably enhances the reliability of a communication systems. Several
limiting factors such as scattering, absorption, poor atmospheric visibility variations interrupt the high
speed data transmission through the wireless optical link that deteriorate the FSO system performance
and reliability as well. Atmospheric turbulence is the key source for link reliability degradation. The
installed FSO systems should retain to operate under severe weather conditions i.e., under the influence
of beam diversity, multipath fading and received signal fluctuations due to atmospheric turbulence. The
tight beam propagation with a confined divergence of few mrad and the field of view at the receiving
end temporarily causes poor link connectivity. As a result, narrow beam property cause link loss or
misalignment issues and thus pointing, acquisition, tracking (PAT) mechanism is essential. Under link
budget design, the received optical power can be easily estimated in a fibre optic communication, whereas,
it is unpredictable, complex and inhomogeneous in air because of spatial distribution of FSO channel and
atmospheric fluctuations. Since optical propagation through space is severely affected by atmospheric
conditions, resulting in signal loss or phase shifting/fluctuations of signal intensity, thereby limiting the
SINR performance and link availability as well with increased BER. Fog prominently deteriorates visible
and NIR radiations and the greater level of humidity percentage in air also lessen the optical signal wave
front quality. Scintillation effect is more apparent for long transmission distance that degrade the overall
reliability of FSO system. On the other hand, atmospheric molecular absorption is a function of optical
wavelength, attenuates the signal particularly in the higher wavelength region [219]. As a consequence,
the choice of operating optical wavelength consistent with the on-site atmospheric conditions is the key
design issue for successful deployment of FSO devices. However, FSO devices are place in such a position
where the probability of disturbance occurrence much lower and the weather conditions are better on
average. It is important to taking into account of point-to-point delay, packet loss, jitter and fairness
while designing protocols and algorithms in FSO systems. For example, the existing congestion control
mechanism in TCP could result inferior throughput performance due to incompatibility in FSO networks
and hence more adaptive protocols should be developed.
To model the long-term reliable FSO data link design, the average visibility information should be
surveyed based on the statistical behavior of atmospheric conditions at a given geometrical location.
After these analyses, the link budget can be expressed as following [172]

RLM = PT X − SRX − LP (1)

where PT X represents transmit power, SRx denotes the receiver sensitivity, and propagation loss is
indicated by LP . Equation 1 gives basic link margin (LM) to express the reliability of optical data link.
The LM can also be defined by [220]
PRX
RLM = 0 (2)
PRX
0
where PRX represents the available receive power and PRX identifies the received power required
to maintain a specified BER at the given transmission rate. RLM defines the loss margin required to
compensate the turbulence effects at a given link coverage. For the telecommunication purpose, FSO
networks must meet the high data rate requirements as much as possible which is equivalent to five
minutes down time per year (link reliability around 99.99%) [219]. For example, if laser transmit power
PT X = 30nW, photodetector sensitivity SRX = 25nW, misalignment loss La = 3dB, optical loss Lo =
4dB, then the estimated RLM =54 dB. For a particular BER value, the range of received power (PRX )
level defined the reliability of link functionality. The FSO system fails to attain desired BER when the
minimum SINR do not meet the condition of PRX > PT h,r or PRX < SRx , where PT h,r represents the
specified saturation value of PRX level. However, the data link availability (Ta ) can be defined when the
achievable throughput exceeds the threshold limit at a specified BER. In practice, Ta is a crucial design
parameters in the presence multiple turbulences.
Z αa
Ta = p(αa ) dαa (3)
0
where αa presents the atmospheric attenuation coefficient and the probability distribution function
can be defined as [221]
17.3 λ −q
αa = ( ) , dB/km (4)
V 550
where V is the visibility measurement to estimate αa , the value of q is chosen based on the V parameter.
Ta is very useful to assess FSO link performance particularly in FSO assisted access networks at a
given location and coverage distance. Note that pointing errors due to jitter is not taken into account
to compute Ta for the automated FSO systems [222]. However, the link reliability can be expressed as
Z ∞
ln(Ith /I0 )
R(l) = p(I) dI = 0.5 − 0.5erf c( √ ) (5)
lth 2 2σ
where p(I) is cumulative probability irradiance and a threshold intensity (Ith ), l is the transmission
link distance in m, erf c(.) is the complementary error function, I0 is the average intensity with no
turbulence and σ is the variance parameter. FSO data link reliability varies in the range between 0 to 1
that depends on the link distance, maintain inverse relationship with R(l). FSO link can be recognized
as an established when reliability is greater than threshold limit Ith .
The broadband functionality of FSO networks is key benefits due to wide frequency range and it
offers unlimited ultra-speed data services in compared to RF wireless networks. It has been reported
that 1550nm laser operating at 200 THz bandwidth exhibits 200000 times greater data rate over a
2000 MHz microwave link [223]. Notably the FSO systems provide an attractive solution to the last-
mile bottleneck and recognized as a pivotal component for the next generation broadband wireless
connectivity. However, the total achievable throughput of the FSO link determined by the aggregate
traffic carrying capacity to the destination under the given constraints. FSO transceivers require an
advanced level of automation allowing self-healing and self-configurations algorithms for topology control
[224]. Authors in [224] proposed a heuristic algorithm addressing congestion called bottom-up minimum
spanning policy according to the transfer matrix. Demir and Yilmaz [225] proposed design of experiment
based on Taguchi’s optimization method to investigate the reliability of the FSO systems analyzing
different parameters such as visibility, link distance, scatter particle size variations per unit volumes to
avoid large computational time.
VI. Mitigation Techniques
In order to attain high link reliability, some viable approaches have been presented in literature in-
cluding PAT technique [170], [226]–[228], diversity mechanisms [229]–[233], hybrid RF/FSO systems [48],
[123], [234]–[242] considering atmospheric fluctuations. Optical signal can be blocked fully or partially
by the temporary obstacles such as drones, birds, industries smoke, unmanned area vehicles, building
sway, tree limbs, etc. in the line of sight connectivity. These sorts of temporary fluctuations can be
handle by adopting multi input multi output (MIMO) FSO transmit/receive diversity system [230].
Under MIMO FSO scheme, an object blocking signal either in Tx or Rx side does not cause any
considerable impact on overall FSO performance. Today’s commercial FSO networks are augmented
with beam divergence combination, beam tracking-alignment, clock-recovery phase locked loop (CR-
PLL) that have the capability to maintain beam centroid capability. It is widely recognized that high
power laser beams alleviate the atmospheric disturbances while maintain desired quality of data rate.
Albeit data transmission through FSO links do not create mutual interference but extreme power laser
sources beyond threshold limit are harmful for eyes. Therefore, safety regulations is paramount issue
for FSO performance and it is important to handle the laser emission enforcement at high intensity in
optical wireless communications. The adaptive control mechanism of laser sources via dynamic power
adjustment in accordance with the wireless optical channel conditions offer a reliable FSO data link
services. It is obvious that the system requires low transmit power for clear weather condition, whereas,
a relatively high intensive laser power is needed to ensure the desired level of throughput, BER and QoS.
The temporal diversity of the FSO channels directly affected by the variations of temperature, geo-
graphical location, wind velocity, altitude, air pressure, humidity level, etc. [243]. In order to address
spatial distortion of the received beam, numerous techniques such as pointing, acquisition, pointing
(PAT), aperture averaging and wave front correction. PAT technique is essential to maintain beam
centroid stability for long-haul communications like inter-satellite FSO, terrestrial FSO systems. Ac-
cording to [167], optical wireless inter-satellite require 1-10 µrad pointing accuracy for 10 Gbps bit rate.
Wave front aberrations implies the optical phase variations due to atmospheric disturbances along the
wireless propagation path. Generally, a wave front sensor or charged coupled camera device is used to
measure the wave-front distortions, whereas, deformable mirror (DM) or electromechanical mirrors are
employed for error compensation. All the components are working based on closed-loop control process
where a laser power source transmit a Gaussian beam from a distant position and get aberrated as it
travels through the free space. The optical lenses (DM) accumulate all the incoming beams and the
DM split into two beams: reflected beams incident on the charged coupled camera device (CCCD)
and propagating signals falls on the photodetector. The DSP controller drive the DM to rectify the
measured distortions through generating appropriate control signals based on CCCD output. Integration
of advanced optics in FSO communication improves the system reliability by eliminating phase errors
[244]. However, some promising mitigation techniques are illustrated in the following to address the
technical challenges encountered by FSO networks.
A. Aperture sizing
Averaging of receiver aperture is the popular technique to mitigate received signal fluctuations. The
aperture area is determined by the transmission length and strength of aforementioned limiting factors.
Increasing the receiver dimension helps to reduce channel fading and eddies induced fast fading. Aperture
averaging manifest the amount of fading reduction in physical layer platform. Note that the quantity of
 Fig. 5: Aperture Averaging of FSO transceiver.

background noise increases with the increment of receiver aperture. Thus, the choice of aperture radius
should be optimum to uplift the power efficiency of the FSO link.The graphical illustration of aperture
averaging of FSO transceiver is shown in Fig. 5.
The aperture averaging factor, Fa at the receiver side can be expressed as

σI2 (D)
Fa = (6)
σI2 (D0 )
where D is the receiver aperture, σI2 is the signal power, and σI2 (D0 ) means the variance of signal
intensity at the centre of the receiver. For a plane wave the Fa can be approximated by [172]

kD2 7/6 −1
Fa = [1 + 1.07( ) ] (7)
4l
2
where l represents the link distance, k is the wave number (2π/λ). For the smaller aperture, ( kD 4l )«
1), Fa =1.0 and the signal intensity reduces with the increment of aperture sizing i.e. for larger aperture,
2

4l )» 1). Therefore, aperture averaging is a significant parameter to address the power variations since
( kD
larger aperture antenna collects all the signal beams falling into it, thereby, exhibits comparatively lower
turbulence induced scintillation.
B. Adaptive optics (AO)
Adaptive optics is based on the closed-loop control principle that helps to transmit distortion free
laser beam through atmosphere. Precise beam pointing in terms of position and angle is accomplished by
implementing adaptive optics with the assistance of steering mirrors in beam propagation path. However,
piezoelectricity driven electromechnical devices are commonly used for beam steering, but it suffers due to
huge space occupancy and longer processing time. AO system consists of wavefront sensor and corrector,
and a set of deformable mirrors at the each transceiver unit to compensate phase floor fluctuations. The
study of AO using micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) for longhaul FSO communication is pointed
out in [245]. MEMS based beam steering system enables fast tracking capabilities and precise pointing
between two FSO terminals. In addition, MEMS based AO systems control laser beams on a narrow size
scale allowing integrated electrical, mechanical and optical systems. The application of AO in downlink
FSO satellite communications is investigated in [246]. Fig. 6 depict the simplified demonstration of
adaptive optics system in FSO perspectives.
C. Relay transmission
Relay aided transmission is a form spatial diversity where all the antennas are arranged in distributed
fashion to share their resources by a cooperative communication. The fundamental objective of introduc-
ing relay nodes in the FSO system to extend transmission distance without sacrificing the QoS level. The
relay nodes draws intensive attention when the source-destination link suffer poor quality. Relay nodes
provide a superior system performance combating the impact of turbulence and offer high SINR mani-
festing the greater level of received signal intensity over noise. Particularly, relay assisted transmission
guaranteed an enhanced level of user experience quality service under severe shadow fading or path loss
 Fig. 6: Illustration of Adaptive Optics System.

Fig. 7: Illustration of Relay Aided FSO Transmission.

effects. Regenerative relay transmission mechanism also improve the coverage of mobile wireless systems
exploiting additional diversity benefits. Relay based transmission eliminates the need of multiple aperture
at the transmitter or received side, a single antenna has the potential to attain significant diversity gain
without sacrificing the quality of experience. The choice of placing relay nodes is an important design
criteria to achieve huge diversity gain employing the cooperative FSO communications. The study of all
optical relay placement and system performance combating the limiting factors is carried out in several
literature [247]–[250]. Fig. 7 manifests the operations of relay assisted FSO transmission.
D. Modulation
A modulation technique is chosen based on the type of applications. Various modulation schemes have
distinctive features such as spectral efficiency (SE) and bit per energy level or energy efficiency (EE).
EE implies the maximum achievable data rate at a target BER for a given transmit power. Although
unlicensed optical band consists of huge bandwidth, still SE is key design parameters as it proportionally
related to the speed of electronic switch circuitry in FSO systems in practical case. At the receiver end, it
is important to know the instantaneous channel state coefficients for optimal signal detection. A few pilot
carriers are used in practice to estimate the channel state information (CSI) with perfect accuracy [251].
A symbol-by-symbol maximum likelihood (ML) detection technique is used as an alternative approach
based on the partial knowledge of the distribution of channel fading coefficients and ML detection based
on the information of joint temporal fading coefficients statistics [252], [253].
The most commonly used a binary level modulation scheme called On-Off Keying (OOK) in FSO
systems due to its simplicity. For ultrafast data communication and complex system architecture, OOK
is less efficient due to poor spectral and energy efficiency (EE). Numerous intensity modulation schemes
have been carried out to suppress some disadvantages. Alternatively, pulse position modulation (PPM)
or variable PPM is a preferred choice for addressing EE applications particularly in deep space commu-
nications [148], [254]. Unlike OOK, PPM does not need any dynamic threshold for optimal detection
while performing hard signal identification. However, OOK and PPM schemes are single carrier based
pulsed modulation and can be unreliable during severe channel impairments for FSO links. Single carrier
modulation techniques are inappropriate for high data rate applications due to high level of inter-symbol
interference (ISI) [255]. Subsequently, subcarrier intensity modulation (SIM) and orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing (OFDM) based multi-carrier SIM (MCSIM) techniques are adopted in several
literature [256]–[258]. A pre-modulated RF signal drive the incoming optical signal for carrying data
in SIM technique. In order to maintain all the amplitude of optical pulses are positive, a DC bias is
incorporated to the signal before drive an optical source [258]. A SIM based approaches have some
advantages over single carrier modulation like mitigate channel impairments, simplicity, cost-effective
solution, and improved spectral efficiency [259].
The addition of an external DC bias with RF signal to neglect non-negative amplitude pulses causes
reduced power efficiency. With the increment of number of subcarriers in MCSIM scheme, the DC
bias signal also need to increase large to prevent non-linear distortion and clipping effects. Thus, OFDM
based MCSIM modulation technique severely experienced by peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) which
degrades the power efficiency [259]. The nonlinearity of light signals is also a critical challenge in MCSIM
technique which leads to inter-carrier interference and widening the signal spectrum resulting inter-
modulation distortion (IMD) [258], [260]. As a consequence, small number of subcarriers are need to
employ to limit IMD, but this surely reduce the transmission rate. Another solution to reduce IMD
effect is to use separate optical source for each carrier resulting complexity and cost as well [261]. In
compared to PPM, multi-pulse PMM (MPPM) reduces PAPR and increases the spectral efficiency as
well but having higher demodulation complexity [105]. MPPM exhibits a superior performance over
PPM under peak transmit power and PPM outperforms MPPM for an average transmit power [262].
Zhang et. al. [263] proposed an improved linear non-symmetrical transform to reduce PAPR in OFDM
based wireless optical communications. A PAPR reduction technique make the signal less vulnerable in
terms of nonlinear distortion, hence, improve the performance of MSIM techniques [264]. A precoding
matrix techniques have been proposed to improve the PAPR, SNR, BER performances of the DC-biased
optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) system in perspective of OWC systems [265]. In order to achieve the
same bandwidth efficiency and enhanced spectral efficiency with the traditional (DCO-OFDM), authors
proposed [266] a modified asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM method.
Another well-known modulation technique is pulse width modulation (PWM) has an improved spectral
efficiency, demand lower peak transmit power, and better performance to inter-symbol interference
(ISI) in comparison with PPM [267]. However, an extra guard slot is required to add to suppress
sending consecutive positive pulses over symbol period. Both PPM and PWM are known as synchronous
modulation since they require slot and symbol synchronization. On the other hand, digital pulse interval
modulation (DPIM) is a type of asynchronous modulation scheme which is more spectrally efficient than
PPM, PWM and does not require symbol and slot synchronization. The possible error propagation during
demodulation at the receiver is the potential limitation of DPIM [268], [269]. Following to the concept
of MPPM, overlapping PPM (OPPM) [270], [271], differential PPM [268] and digital pulse interval
and width modulation (DPIWM) [272] are proposed for improving the spectral efficiency. In OPPM, the
optical pulses occupy adjacent slots and symbols end with a pulse can be exploited for synchronization in
DPPM, whereas, the binary sequence is encoded into pulse width of alternating amplitude in DPIWM.
The fundamental limitations of all these modulations are the poor energy efficiency, high receiving
complexity, and the probability of error propagation while detecting encoded bit sequence.
Being inspired from the aforementioned concerns, multi-level modulation schemes could be employed in
FSO systems to attain better SE in comparison with binary modulations. For example, the optical pulse
is modulated on M levels in M ary-PAM [273], M ary-PSK [274], and M ary-QAM [275], which requires
a laser source with different emission intensity. All of these M-level modulation methods provide higher
SE and EE with respect to binary level modulation schemes. Apart from this, other multilevel intensity
modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) schemes such as differential phase shift keying (DPSK) [276],
carrier-less amplitude and phase (CAP) [277] modulation have been considered in FSO systems.
E. FSO channel modeling
FSO channels are subject to atmospheric turbulence and fading, so the definitions of channel capacity
by means of ergodic capacity and outage probability should be considered because of the random nature of
channel fading coefficients. Ergodic capacity is referred as the expectations of the instantaneous channel
capacity which can be computed via mutual information expression in comparison with different fading
coefficients. If the mutual information fails to reach the information rate in FSO channels, an outage
event is specified which is known as probability of fade or outage probability. The performance of FSO
link significantly hampered by means of signal fade under the severe atmospheric turbulence factors. In
particular, FSO channel is highly variable, unpredictable and vulnerable due to inhomogeneity in pressure
and temperature of the atmospheric layer. The variation of refractive index and multiple scattering
along the propagation path results in phase and intensity fluctuations of the received optical signal.
The effect of scintillation induced by temperature and spatial fluctuations of light intensity lessen the
FSO link performance even under clear weather. As a consequences, bit error rate increases considerably
especially for the long distance FSO communication even for the small effect of aforementioned issues.
The link margin (LM) approach is a statistical parameter that is used to quantify the performance of
FSO transmission system. LM can be expressed in decibel (dB) which can be defined as the ratio of
received optical power to the power required for the target bit rate and error probability. The term LM
accounts all the limiting factors associated in the FSO link including transceiver station parameters and
link budget models support the designers for optimum implementation under all weather conditions at
a given location [219], [221], [278], [279]. Some other factors such as beam divergence loss, sky radiance,
background noise, angle of beam arrival variations, free space seeing, and cloud blockage are need to be
considered during FSO link implementation.
A numerous research works have been conducted to investigate the channel capacity of turbulent FSO
channels. The study of ergodic capacity of FSO channels is carried out in [234]–[236], [280]–[285] for
the cases of Gamma-Gamma, Rayleigh, Nakagami-m, Malaga, Rician and log-normal fading taken into
consideration of AWGN model for the receiver noise. On the other hand, the outage probability [123],
[234]–[236], [238], [239], [256], [257], [274]–[276], [280]–[294], bit error rate analysis [104], [105], [234],
[236], [239], [256], [257], [274]–[276], [281]–[285], [288], [289], [291], [292], [294]–[300], and throughput
performance [104], [105], [235], [236], [273], [275], [286], [287], [293], [295]–[298], [301]–[303] are studied
considering the mentioned fading models with AWGN.
The unguided beam fluctuations on the free space due to the atmospheric turbulence induced channel
fading leads to a remarkable FSO system performance degradation in the form of receiving error bits.
Channel coding is one of the promising fading mitigation technique under weak and strong turbulence
conditions [168], [304]. To handle the atmospheric turbulence, several fading reduction techniques such
as tempo-spatial diversity [233], [305]–[307], sequence data detection algorithms [308]–[310], and relay
enabled communications [113], [276], [300], [311], [312] have carried out in the context of FSO communi-
cations. However, majority of the proposed methods are complex and difficult to implementation while
processing high data rate communications.
The channel fading of FSO systems is similar to quasi-static property that is slow varying and the
CSI can be estimated with better accuracy and fed back to the transmitter. The FSO transmitter is
then adjust its parameter for example, transmit power, modulation level and code rate according to the
current CSI. Note that adaptive transmission is the most suitable approach for full duplex operations
of feedback purpose in FSO link [304]. Therefore, adaptive channel coding and power control scheme is
very important for commercial FSO systems under practical constraints to satisfy the target BER and
desired ergodic capacity with minimum outage. Reference [304] proposed a jointly adaptive transmission
and power control schemes assuming Gamma-Gamma turbulence channels aiming to achieve target
BER and outage probability. The rate compatible punctured convolutional (RCPC) codes are used to
perform adaptive transmission for controlling the channel coding rate. Viterbi algorithm and RCPC
codes based maximum likelihood decoder is used to reduce the complexity of the FSO transceivers.
Odeyemi et. al. [313] studied the performance of FSO spatial modulation (FSO-SM) systems consid-
ering the influence of Gamma-Gamma distribution and pointing errors. The symbol error rate (SER)
performance is investigated employing convolution coding. Authors in [314] examined the bit error rate
and pair-wise error probability performance of FSO systems based on bit interleaved coded modulation
(BICM)-enabled subcarrier intensity modulation (SIM) employing convolution coding. Authors proposed
probabilistic shaping schemes in FSO systems of 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM)
 TABLE VI: A comparison of FSO cahnnel model, channel coding and modulation scheme
References Channel model Channel coding Modulation
[238] Nakagami-m OSTBC IM/DD OOK
[256] Malaga Repetition coding SIK
[304], [306] Gamma–Gamma FEC RCPC OOK
[233] Generalized gamma OSTBC PAM, OSSK
[308], [309] Gamma–Gamma Convolution OOK, PPM
[313] Gamma–Gamma Convolution Spatial modulation
[314] Gamma–Gamma BICM, Convolution M 2 -QAM
[315] Gamma–Gamma Convolution 16-QAM
[316], [331] Log-normal, K-distribution LDPC OOK
[317] Gamma–Gamma Convolution BPSK
[318] Log-normal Convolution Q-ary PPM
[319], [320] Gamma–Gamma FEC RCPC BPSK
[321] Gamma–Gamma STTC IM/DD OOK
[322] Non-fading RC OOK
[329] Gamma-Gamma Alamouti DPSK
[332] Gamma-Gamma BMST PPM
[333]–[335] Gamma-Gamma RC OOK
[336] Gamma-Gamma BCHB PPM
[337] Gamma-Gamma RC PAM
[338] Gamma-Gamma OOC PPM
[339] Gamma-Gamma PLNC BPSK
[340] Gamma-Gamma IMC BPSK, 8-PPM
[341] Gamma-Gamma RC BPSK
[342] Generalized gamma Alamouti, space-time 4-PAM
[294] Gamma-Gamma OSTBC BPSK
[343] Exponentiated Weibull LDPC 16-PSK, 16-QAM
[344] Gamma-Gamma OCDMA BPSK
[345] Gamma-Gamma Reed-Solomon OOK, QAM-MPPM
[346] Gamma-Gamma Polar OOK
[347] Gamma-Gamma Turbo OOK
[348] Gamma-Gamma LT, BCHB BPSK
[349] Non-fading Reed-Solomon OOK
[350] Non-fading Reed-Solomon CSK
[351] Non-fading Miller, Concatenation Convolution OOK
[352] Non-fading Trellis MPSK-CSK
[353] Non-fading Trellis CSK

and convolution coding technique under the influence of Gamma-Gamma disturbance in [315], [316]. The
bit error rate performance for IM/DD FSO systems with binary phase shift modulation and convolution
coding over Gamma-Gamma turbulence channels is investigated in [317]. The expressions of BER and
pairwise error probability (PEP) for convolution codes and Q-ary PPM signaling schemes are thoroughly
examined in [318]. In [319], the performance of BPSK OFDM-FSO over the Gamma-Gamma turbulence
channel is investigated integrating forward error correction (FEC) coding to improve the error probability.
Authors designed error control protocol and analyzed throughput performance employing RCPC code
over atmospheric turbulence channels for FSO burst transmission in satellite communications in [320].
The operation of novel space-time trellis codes (STTCs) for FSO communication using IM/DD under
atmospheric turbulence and misalignment of fading channels is investigated in [321].
A simple rate adaptive transmission approach based on OOK modulation formats with memory is
demonstrated in [322]. Authors in [323], [324] analyzed QoS aware delay constraint power allocation
for a coherent FSO systems considering the atmospheric turbulence fading channel. An optimal power
allocation problem under eye safety constraints is studied for adaptive WDM-FSO systems in [325].
Authors proposed an adaptive uncoded transmission policy for a channel state dependent transmit power
and modulation level in FSO communications in [326]. Reference [327] proposed a coding rate adjustment
policy based on the temporal conditions of fading channels under fixed transmit power. To improve the
FSO link performance in the presence of strong turbulence, an adaptive low-density-parity-check (LDPC)
coded modulation is considered in [328]. In [329], authors presented a dual-hop relay-assisted hybrid
RF/FSO communications using Alamouti coding in the presence of pointing error over the Gamma-
Gamma atmospheric turbulence channels. Authors investigated indoor FSO link reliability in terms of
packet error rate using rateless code (RaptorQ code) under the locally generated turbulence effect in
[330]. A summary of optical signal modulation schemes, wireless link models, and channel coding schemes
are presented in Table VI.
 Fig. 8: Spatial Diversity Mechanism in FSO Networks.

F. Background noise reduction

The background noise is created due to solar irradiation in the daytime. The background radiation noise
is a function of wavelength, higher background noise at lower operating wavelength. The introduction of
spatial filters with an adaptive modulation technique having high PAPR can able to mitigate this noise.
In such case, some crucial design parameters like Doppler shift, angle of signal arrival, and spectral width
of laser source are need to be considered to build spatial filters. M-ary PPM is the best choice for FSO
links as it is more energy efficient and sharply reduce the background radiation noise. Mapping narrow
FOV with the help of AO including an array of actuators in the receiver side, and corresponding filter
selection is another approach to combat background noise [354].
G. Diversity
Diversity techniques can operate in three different domains such as time, frequency and space to dimin-
ish atmospheric disturbances. As contrast with single large aperture, an array of multiple transmitters
and receivers are used to generate/receive multiple copies of mutually correlated signals either in three
above domains. It is widely recognized that diversity techniques restricts the need of active tracking
during misalignment that has the capability to improve BER performance with desired QoS. To achieve
the full benefits of spatial diversity, the separation between antennas should be equal or greater than
the coherence length at either transmitter or receiving end. However, spatial correlation is a function of
beam width, beam divergence and variance of beam wander. For SIMO receive diversity, the diversity
gain can be derived by averaging the multiple independent laser beams. However, three receive diversity
techniques namely selective combining (SC), maximal ratio combining (MRC) and equal gain combing
(EGC) can be used at receiving end. The diversity gain for MRC scheme is comparatively higher that
proving maximum level of SINR. On the other hand, ECG is a preferred choice over two other methods
because of simplicity and low cost installation [355]. FSO MIMO is quite similar to RF MIMO that
increases the channel capacity linearly scaled with the number of transmitting antennas. Time diversity
is normally deployed for time selective fading channels where repetitive symbols are transmitted in
different coherence time. However, time diversity can be implemented either incorporating coding or bit
interleaving in accordance with the difference between the length of data frame and channel coherence
time. The generalized spatial diversity technique in FSO networks is depicted in Fig. 8.
H. Coherent FSO
The fluctuations of amplitude and phase of the received signal results in decreasing SINR and degrade
the BER performance. Based on the detection techniques, FSO communication can be classified into:
direct detection (DD) FSO and coherent detection (CD) FSO. In DD-FSO communication scheme, the
intensity of source light carry the information and photodetector directly detect the changes of all photons
entering into it without any external mechanism at the receiver side. In contrary to IM/DD systems,
amplitude, frequency or phase can be used for information encoding in coherent FSO systems allowing
to enhance spectral efficiency. The receiver unit equipped with local oscillator (LO) beam where the
 Fig. 9: Coherent Detection in FSO Systems.

received signal mixed with LO generated optical field before photo detection. Thereafter, the signal is
amplified and passed through the filter in order to rejection of background noise and interferences [356].
It has been recognized that coherent FSO scheme provides the greater level of the receiver sensitivity
over IM/DD systems. Numerous modulation techniques such as M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation
(M-QAM), multilevel quadrature phase shift keying (M-QPSK), or multilevel polarization phase shift
keying (M-PolSK) are commonly used in CD-FSO systems [343], [345].
Despite the potential benefits of coherent FSO by means of noise rejection, handling turbulence
induced multipath fading and improved level of receiver sensitivity, DD-FSO systems are mostly used
because of simplicity and lower cost. With the advancement of ultra-speed digital processing integrated
units, coherent FSO schemes are implemented increasingly [357]. Atmospheric disturbances distorts the
transmitted signal and resulting imperfection of wave front with the LO at the receiving end. The relevant
phase distortions severely curbing the system performance particularly when the receiver aperture is
higher than coherence length of the incoming signal wavefront. Phase compensation technique through
tracking the optical beam offers a promising solution of turbulence-induced distortions. Two different
approaches named homodyne and heterodyne detection are followed in coherent receivers. Homodyne
reception technique requires a precise level of phase matching i.e. proper phase locked loop that makes
the device very expensive. Because of this constraint, heterodyne receiver is widely adopted although the
prior technique provides a better detection sensitivity [358]. Recently, several research works have been
done to improve spectral efficiency, link distance and system capacity employing advanced modulation
formats in the context of coherent FSO communications [359]–[363]. Reference [364] demonstrated a 160
Gbps of 256 QAM OFDM over 160 km single mode fibre (SMF) for optical backbone and 4 km FSO links.
Authors in [360] presented a 200 Gbps, 20 Gbaud dual polarization (DP) 1024-QAM transceiver scheme
of spectral efficiency (SE) 14 bit/sec/Hz, whereas, Kakati and Arya [359] demonstrated maximum 640
Gbps data rate with 40 Gbps symbol rate, SE of 15.3 bit/sec/Hz for both in optical core infrastructure
and free space optics over the same transmission distance (i.e. 160 km SMF and 4 km FSO). However,
receive diversity under different turbulence nature has attracted special attention in coherent systems
providing much benefits of mitigating fading, noise and interfering signals. Fig. 9 presents the graphical
illustration of coherent receiving technique in FSO systems.
An optical WiMAX transmission system enables longer distance free-space communication, massive
information carrying capacity, and proximity repeatability combing the merits of optical and wireless
technologies. In the FSO-WiMAX scheme, OFDM divided the channel into N number of narrowband
slots assigning appropriate subcarriers. OFDM technique improve the spectral efficiency and dispersion
rate. A tightly coherent optical beam adopts the spatial light modulator to a broadband optical WiMAX
transport system over the long distance FSO data channel.
 Fig. 10: Demonstration of hybrid RF/FSO mechanism.

I. Sub-carrier Multiplexing (SCM)

Employing multiple wavelength using sub-carrier multiplexing (SCM) technique can achieve 1 Tb/s
bit rate over 3 Tb/s-km bandwidth-length product and curtails the overall cost per bit [172]. As a result,
the integration of SCM based modulation with FSO systems offers an emerging solution to the last-mile
applications particularly for the large temporal and spatial bandwidth of light signal. According to the
definition, N subcarriers employing multiplexing are transmitted and Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM)
is used for modulating the optical carrier signal. Thereafter, the modulated signal is passed through FSO
channels; photodiode demultiplexed the incoming information to their destinations. Due to the coherent
electrical detection at the receiving end, the full spectrum can be efficiently utilized in SCM-FSO systems.
J. Hybrid FSO
Each individual technologies of RF based network and optical wireless have some advantages and
limitations. The fundamental limitations of FSO systems including blocking of communications by
obstacles can be effectively overcome using the concept of the coexistence of RF and FSO networks
taking their individual advantages. The presence of hybrid RF/FSO systems improves the link reliability
and facilitates load balancing under different scenarios. The convergence of heterogeneous architecture
including RF and FSO networks incorporating diverse frequency bands plays a pivotal role to provide
higher degree of QoS and work well under all adverse weather conditions. The simultaneous operation of
hybrid approach endeavor seamless system capacity and end users avail the inherent benefits from the
RF/FSO technology. In other words, RF systems address the blockage hole providing wider coverage
area at the user end and FSO ensure high data rate that can operate in the same environment without
causing interference among each other. Hybrid technology can play a significant role in link-reliability
enhancement, energy-efficient operations, seamless wireless connectivity in remote distances, interference
minimization, and security issues. The goal of combined wireless systems to attain better performance
through eliminating the limitations of individual technologies. Some technical hurdles like shadow effects,
inter-symbol interference (ISI), phase induced noise, multi-access interference (MAI) and multipath
fading reduces the intensity of the received signal. The RF networks performs as a backup path whenever
blockage occurs, NLOS conditions, antenna misalignment, or the severe degradation along FSO link. The
transmission link switch back to optical link when the signal is recovered.
In the response to escalating FSO link reliability, RF link serving as a backup path in parallel with the
FSO channel propagation path offers a potential solution during FSO link outage. Thermal expansion,
heavy wind loads, and little earthquake causes the vibration, thereby break the tight pointing (i.e.
misalignment) of the FSO transmitter toward the photodetector position [365], [366]. The combined
use of RF systems like microwave and mmWave with FSO can suppress these restrictions. Although
RF system exhibits inferior data rate performance in compared to FSO link, it can guaranteed the
connectivity while FSO channel fail. However, RF channels is less affected by pointing errors, fog and
atmospheric turbulence. Notably RF link is typically configured in the millimeter (mm) wave bands
ranging around 60 GHz that facilitate high bandwidth incorporating with FSO link. Moreover, RF-based
communications enable improved performance in NLOS conditions and support better mobility, but RF
technology is electromagnetic interference sensitive. For the long-span combined RF/FSO systems, RF
link can be used for beam pointing and acquisition for ensuring better reliability [64]. These special
features of RF technology mitigate the limitations of FSO deployment. The energy efficiency (bps/Watt)
of FSO system is comparatively higher than an RF system. Shifting the traffic load to optical networks
from RF minimize the overall energy consumption. Provisioning the RF/FSO systems is the best choice
for spectrum utilization particularly for the indoor user’s performance. Mobility support with extremely
high speed is paramount benefits of the RF/FSO hybrid systems. Hybrid FSO scheme offers excellent
communication distance for vehicular systems (V2X) handling dense traffic densities over the wider
geographical region [152]. An FSO networks plays as a primary link and RF system used as a secondary
backup path to establish high reliability. The wireless connectivity through relay nodes is termed as
mixed RF/FSO network.
The problem encountered in hybrid FSO system, a re-transmission approach is adopted in litera-
ture [367] where the lost packets are retransmitted via RF link. The proposed technique based on
throughput-optimal scheduler that has the capability of handling handover between optical network and
RF architecture efficiently. The function of hybrid infrastructure gateway is scheduling, re-transmitting
and handling all the incoming data from data packet scheduler. However, the key challenge of vertical
handover is to maintain expected QoS. Markov decision process [368] and fuzzy-logic approach [369]
is proposed to manage vertical handover issue. Markov decision scheme minimize the pin-pong effects
i.e. the redundant switching is avoided when blocking occurs in LOS link. The optical link interruption
is primarily depends on the user distribution based on space, time and duration. In accordance to
the user mobility predictions, the packet scheduling of hybrid FSO networks can be determined using
Markov chain process. On the other hand, fuzzy-logic process address the uncertainty of decision metrics.
Reference [370]–[372] demonstrates the physical layer security of hybrid RF/FSO systems formulating
the minimum power consumption satisfying the users secrecy rate. Fig. 10 demonstrates the fundamental
hybrid RF/FSO communication system.
WiFo (WiFi-FSO) Communication: WiFo is a hybrid (i.e. a combination of both RF and FSO
technologies) high capacity indoor wireless communication systems based on femtocell architecture to
increase spectral efficiency and reduce interference [373], [374]. WiFo can be used to handle multi
user FSO communication problems where end users received multiple FSO signals simultaneously in
overlapped areas. With the added benefits of high modulation bandwidth of VCSEL, the WiFo typically
adopt embedded coding PAM technique for short distance indoor communications resulting low energy
consumption and PiN photodiode [374]. A set of FSO transmitters are comprised in WiFo directly
under the roof. All FSO transmitters generate invisible light that are connected to high speed 100
Gbps Ethernet network controlled by the access point (AP). Whereas, AP manages the simultaneous
data communications of FSO signals and the existing WiFi links. WiFo permits denser deployment of
light sources where a single receiver can capture all FSO transmitted signals like MISO systems. These
crowded installations enable end users in overlapped areas to achieve higher data rate.
Underwater optical wireless communications (UOWC) by means of the aggregate technology of RF,
acoustics and optics has drawn deep attention for multiple potential applications for instance, oil pipe
monitoring, underwater environment and offshore investigation. UOWC based of RF and acoustic tech-
nology cannot support long distance communication and high speed data rate as well. Acoustic waves
enables maximum 20 km underwater link distance with bit rate ranging from tens Hz to hundred of kHz
[375]. On the other hand, RF systems also exhibits extremely poor performance that are limited to short
link distance. The excellent technical benefits of hybrid RF/acoustic/optical technology can overcome
limitations such as link delay, low coverage, and strong signal attenuation.
Recently, optical/optical hybrid wireless technologies such as FSO/VLC, FSO/OCC showing different
characteristics has also received much attraction among researchers. FSO/OCC hybrid solution provides
long distance V2X communications while maintain stable link performance eliminating their individual
limitations. OCC support comparatively short distance communications between vehicles with low data
rate. In contrast, FSO networks provides communication between cars far apart. Therefore, the hybrid
system satisfy user demand and increase reliability as well. However, the performance is considerable
suffered by the atmospheric conditions in outdoor particularly precise control of the transceiver [376].
To address precise indoor and outdoor localization, pointing, navigation, interference effect, handling of
diverse data rates, bit rate requirement, coverage area, a hybrid FSO/VLC heterogeneous interconnection
 TABLE VII: Summary of Hybrid FSO Applications
Hybrid type Objective Contribution References
Seamless microwave photonic link composed of RoFSO, RoF and
RF, traffic shifted from RF to FSO network. Effect of channel
Microwave/FSO impairments like chromatic dispersion, atmospheric turbulence,
Backhaul con- [41], [47], [48],
and and multi-path induced fading are considered. Complementary
nectivity [274], [379]–[387]
mmWave/FSO properties of the FSO and mmWave channels, diversity selection
combining technique improves the link reliability in terms BER of
under strong turbulence
Hybrid RF/FSO improve the link reliability for long distance [235]–[239], [242],
Backhaul con- communication. Extensive simulation is conducted to evaluate [285], [293], [294],
RF/FSO
nectivity SINR, BER taking into account of limiting factors under different [297], [300], [301],
network scenarios [303], [385]
Based on the link distance, oceanic turbulence induced scintilla-
High bit rate,
Acoustics tion and misalignment in underwater links, and pointing, acquisi- [142], [143], [145],
link reliability
UWC/FSO tion, and tracking (PAT) establishment, LOS/NLOS condition, a [273], [275], [388]
enhancement
UWC/FSO system is established for reliable communication

Fig. 11: Simplified Block Diagram of RoFSO System.

is proposed in literature [377], [378]. The implementation and deployment of FSO/VLC hybrid network
coordination together with user mobility support, localization, routing algorithm, traffic management,
and handover issues are clearly discussed in [378].
In order to measure the effectiveness of any system, performance analysis is a vital issue. The perfor-
mance metrics assessment can be carried out in various ways such as analytical evaluation, numerical
method, simulation environments, and experimental verification. Different works used different perfor-
mance metrics such as throughput analysis, BER, spectral efficiency, outage probability, secrecy rate
analysis, symbol error rate, ergodic capacity, SINR, and power efficiency to investigate received signal
quality, system capacity and reliability. Some applications of hybrid FSO systems with brief description
are presented in Table VII. Table VIII and Table IX summarizes the key objectives and detailed discussion
on different aspects on recent research trends of hybrid FSO.
VII. Radio over FSO (RoFSO) System
Radio over free space optics (RoFSO) has emerged as a prominent technologies in future commu-
nications due high data transmission and low energy consumption. The concept of RoFSO system is
composed of radio over fiber (RoF) and FSO system where the optical signal is modulated with the RF
signal at a transmitter end before transferring to the receiver. In other words, RoFSO is technique that
allows simultaneous data transmission of broadband RF signals in bidirectional path over FSO link. A
technique of modulating RF subcarriers onto an optical carrier for transmission over an optical fiber link
is known as RoF. However, RoFSO system can overcome the last mile problems for broadband services
with desired reliability of communication link in area where the installation of fiber cable is restricted
[381]. To meet the unprecedented growth of user demands in 5G and B5G communications, a telecom
operators need to install more number of base stations (BSs) in order to avoid spectral congestion in lower
RF frequency bands which significantly increases the net present cost and system complexity. Whereas
RoFSO provides the greater level of reliability, flexibility in deployment, low signal loss, immunity to
electromagnetic interference with the advantage of high optical bandwidth in a cost effective way [389].
The principle of RoFSO is similar the operation of WDM technique. The generalized block diagram
of radio over FSO (RoFSO) system is clearly presented in Fig. 11. Under the RoFSO scheme, the
central base stations distribute optical signals through free space to multiple remote stations. In general,
Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM) is used to perform the modulation of an optical beam as a function of
a RF signal by combining phase-delayed optical beams. In MZM, a beam-splitter separated the incident
 TABLE VIII: Summary of Hybrid FSO Research Trends
Reference Metrics Objectives Description Remarks
[48] Throughput, Data rate maximization Developed a joint channel allocation and rate con- System
Outage of vehicular ad-hoc net- trol to enhance throughput and solve the cross capacity
probability work (VANET) layer design problem incorporating carrier sense
multiple access (CSMA). Capacity and outage
probability are also satisfied through alternating
detection method
[237] Throughput Orthogonal frequency Proposed a relay assisted OFDMA based through- System
division multiple access put maximization of hybrid RF/FSO link consid- capacity,
(OFDMA) based scheme ering multiuser resource allocation scheme includ- signal
ensure the backhaul ing power and subcarrier allocation quality
performance of FSO link
[301] Throughput Network control Studied the achievable throughput enhancement System
approach for throughput using mixed linear integer problem. Also, proposed capacity,
optimization based a heuristic scheduling and traffic demand routing reliability
on various channel adopting physical channel interference model
conditions
[286] Outage Power adaption Determined the improvement of outage perfor- System
probability, technique driven by mance assuming two distinctive power adoption capacity,
SINR truncated channel strategies with analytical derivations signal
inversion for ensuring quality
fixed SINR at receiver
[287] Throughput, Performance evaluation Derived the closed form expressions for the signal System
outage assuming precise channel decoding. Also, analyzed the throughput and out- capacity
probability, state information at re- age probability in consideration of adaptive power
power efficiency ceiver allocation and state of channel conditions
[302] Throughput, Throughput maximiza- Focused on the optimal system design according System
power efficiency tion using parallel relay to sub-optimal buffer aided mechanism such as the capacity,
assisted networks optimal relay selection strategies and optimal time reliability
allocation
[235] Ergodic System performance op- Closed-from expressions are derived to evaluate System
capacity, outage timization with oppor- the system performance analyzed varying different capacity,
probability, tunistic scheduling atmospheric turbulence conditions. Monte-Carlo signal
blocking simulations are conducted to justify the exact and quality,
probability, asymptotic results in the presence of turbulence reliability
SINR fading and pointing error
[280] Ergodic Investigate the Outage probability, symbol error probability and System
capacity, power performance of ergodic channel capacity are assessed based on capacity,
efficiency, multiuser SIMO hybrid closed-from expressions using maximal ratio com- signal
outage relay networks with bining and selective combing in the presence of quality
probability opportunistic user different fading model
scheduling
[281] Ergodic capac- Performance evaluation Develop the closed-from expressions of CDF, PDF, System
ity, outage prob- of asymmetric link of and moments of SINR validated with the help of capacity
ability, BER dual-hop relay transmis- different metrics
sion system with point-
ing error
[282] Ergodic capac- Performance Investigate average BER, ergodic capacity and system
ity, outage prob- investigation of outage probability considering gamma-gamma capacity
ability, BER switching-based fading and Nakagami fading
transmission scheme
[256] Ergodic Hardware impairments Impact of hardware impairments for different SNR system
capacity, SINR, for heterodyne IM/DD is illustrated. Analytical expressions for different capacity,
SER, outage with fixed gain relay performance parameters are derived and compared signal
probability scheme the numerical results through the numerical inte- quality
gration method
[303] Throughput, Cascading of small cell Developed optimal fixed and adaptive link alloca- system
delay tolerant networks to hybrid tion algorithms based on channel state information capacity,
performance RF/FSO backhaul link to investigate delay limited and delay tolerant signal
transmission schemes quality
[236] Throughput, Cost reduction and scal- Examined the performance metrics considering the system
BER, outage ability improvement of effect of pointing errors owing to the misalignment capacity,
probability, mmWave RF/FSO between the transmitter and receiver. Note that reliability
ergodic the cascaded channels are modeled by the Rician
capacity, SNR and Malaga distributions
[296] Throughput, Mitigation technique of Proposed a transmit diversity at the sending end System
BER, outage multipath fading and at- and selection combining technique at the receiver capacity,
probability, mospheric turbulence for end to investigate the effect of pointing errors reliabil-
SINR a dual hop hybrid system on the FSO link. Also, examine the the system ity, signal
performance and provide a light of way to mitigate quality
limiting factors
[123] Outage Determine the optimal Exact closed-form expression is derived to find an Reliability
probability, transmit power and co- optimal power allocation. The secrecy performance
power efficiency channel interference and physical layer security performance is studied
under different constraints
 TABLE IX: Summary of Hybrid FSO Research Trends (Continued)
Reference Metrics Objectives Description Remarks
[283] Ergodic capacity, Estimation higher link To avoid needless switching, a single FSO link is Reliability,
outage probabil- reliability under extreme considered to active whereas an extra mmWave system
ity, BER atmospheric constraints RF/FSO link is used as a backup. The primary capacity
link is modeled by gamma-gamma distribution
assuming strong turbulence
[274] SNR, BER, Out- Switching strategies to Performance investigation using selection combin- Reliability,
age probability minimize the bandwidth ing diversity based on closed-form expression of system
wastage maintain the BER and outage probability. Ensure the same data capacity
same data rate with the same data rate over the FSO link without
having CSI
[289] BER, Outage Impact of outdated CSI Considered partial amplify-and-forward relay se- Reliability
probability based relay selection on lection. RF link is subject to Rayleigh fading and
the system performance FSO link is modeled by gamma-gamma distribu-
tion. Mathematical expressions of various perfor-
mance metrics are derived
[290] Outage Cost minimization due Performance investigation by joint consideration Reliability
probability, to power consumption of power allocation and dynamic link selection
power efficiency while ensuring packet for guaranteeing the long-term reliability require-
success probability ments. The closed form of power allocation policy
is derived for link selection and Lyapunov opti-
mization algorithm is used to solve the problem
[291] BER, Outage Effective link quality Analyzed a hybrid RF/FSO point-to-multipoint Reliability,
probability scheduling using system assuming multiple FSO users, RF users signal
multiuser diversity and access points. The asymptotic closed form quality
expressions for average BER, outage probability
are derived considering multiuser diversity gain
[284] SINR, SER, Two way multiuser An efficient optimal power transmission algorithm System
ergodic relay networks with is developed for a heterodyne detection scheme. capacity,
capacity, Outage opportunistic scheduling The system performance is evaluated for two way reliabil-
probability and non-uniform relaying network and single way relaying network ity, signal
channel fading is in the presence of weather turbulence and pointing quality
investigated error effect
[257] SINR, BER, Out- Dual hop hybrid system Fixed gain and channel assisted relaying policy is System
age probability based on cognitive am- derived according to the asymptotic expressions. capacity,
plify and forward relay Heterodyne IM/DD detection receiver with dou- reliability
networks ble gamma fading channel is considered. In addi-
tion, the diversity order and diversity multiplexing
trade-off is carried out to investigate the overall
system performance
[292] BER, Outage Controlling the FSO link Analytical expressions of outage probability and System
probability fragility and reduction of BER are derived varying different modulation capacity,
outage probability scheme with its different channel impairments reliability
[275] SINR, BER, Out- Performance analysis of Evaluate SINR, BER, and outage probability un- Reliability
age probability dual hop RF/UWOC hy- der the effect of water bubble levels, tempera-
brid systems under fixed ture gradient, water conditions and detection tech-
and variable gain relay- niques of underwater wireless optical communica-
ing schemes tion
[273] Throughput, Boosting of total channel Total achievable throughput of FSO/UWOC link System
BER capacity with FSO back- is 500 Gbps integrating PAM4 modulation with capacity,
bone UWOC five (5 R/G/B LD transmitters of two stages) signal
wavelength-polarization multiplexing scheme quality

laser light waves into two paths to illustrate a linear electro-optic (EO) effect that produces birefringence
in an optical medium when the electric field is applied. By tuning the electric field i.e., RF input signals
the phase delay of upper and lower path can be controlled and then the beams are combined at the
output either constructively of destructively. The EO mechanism changes the refractive index of the
optical medium and thus, the MZM can be used for amplitude, phase, frequency modulations [222].
VIII. Multi-user FSO Communication
Multiple users transmit different signals, which is mixed in the wireless propagation medium. Blind
source separation (BSS) technique is used to extract the original information from the mixed signals. This
problems exist in numerous applications such as biomedical data analysis, speech signals identification,
machine learning based communications, etc. [390]. Since users are randomly distributed over space,
different channels will experience independent fading. Exploiting multiple antenna diversity technique
can considerably improve the FSO wireless transmission performance. Multiuser diversity offers some
inherent benefits over antenna diversity as it explores independent fading channels. It also support a
simple receiver structure where a single antenna is equipped per receiver. Introducing a number of access
points through long-range FSO link that amplifies the received signal via short distance RF link and
 Fig. 12: Generalized Multiuser MIMO FSO System.

forward to next hop increase the transmission distance and reliability of data services as well. Authors
[276] reported a multi user multi hop combined RF/FSO communication systems that offers lower energy
consumption, low delay processing and minimum complexity. Amplify and forward relaying is used for
fixed gain amplification when channel state information (CSI) is unknown, in contrast, adaptive gain
is a suitable choice when CSI is known. Chen et. al. [291] studied the multi-user diversity RF/FSO
point-to-multipoint MISO communication systems consisting hybrid access points aiming to minimum
error probability and BER. A multiuser mixed RF/FSO two way relaying (TWR) method considering
asymmetric channel gain is presented in [391] to examine the outage probability and energy-efficient
power allocation. However, Multiuser MIMO transmission is a better choice over spatial multiplexing
as it can considerably extend the capacity of wireless communication systems [392]. Fig. 12 shown the
basic multiuser MIMO communications in FSO perspectives.
It is essential to sense the optical spectrum periodically in order to avoid interference among multiple
users particularly to detect the channel occupancy. Spectrum sensing plays a significant role in multi-
user FSO communications that allow user to monitor the available optical frequency spectrum in their
operating range [393]. A generalized blind spectrum sensing [i.e. applicable to all optical wavelengths]
policy based on SNR estimation for an unknown optical signal over strong atmospheric turbulence
conditions is reported in [394]. An extensive investigation of energy detection method based optical free
spectrum sensing for FSO communication over exponentially distributed channel is conducted in [395].
IX. MIMO FSO Systems
Diversity techniques e.g. spatial diversity realized multiple beams at either the transmitter or multiple
apertures at the receiver end can considerably improve the wireless FSO transmission over fading
induced channels. The spatial diversity technique helps to enhance the FSO transmission reliability
introducing inherent signal redundancy [231], [396]. It is worthy to mention that turbulence-induced
fading considerably deteriorates single input single output (SISO)-FSO link [397]. As an indication
of the context, additional power margin is employed to achieve desire QoS, this power penalty can
be alleviated by increasing the transmission power. However, this approach is impractical due to eye
safety regulations and relatively lower reliability. Typically, a conventional Gaussian light signal can
experience beam wandering effect, causes power fluctuations and wavefornt distortions due to unwanted
atmospheric turbulence. In addition, misalignment between transceivers causes significant power loss at
the receiver end as explained beforehand. There have been several approaches to handle possible signal
degradations. Aperture averaging is a potential technique of improving system performance by means of
incorporating wider lens at the receiver side to mitigate fading effect via averaging intensity fluctuations.
This technique is efficient under moderate-to-strong
√ atmospheric turbulence when the receiver aperture
is greater than fading correlation length, λl, with l denote the transmission distance and λ represents
the wavelength [64]. Using multiple small apertures instead of large aperture at the receiver is a suitable
way to reduce fading with taking the advantage of aperture averaging. Employing several apertures is
more advantageous under strong turbulence regime but involves implementation complexity. For single
input multi output (SIMO) spatial diversity systems, equal gain combining (EGC) method is used that
offer less complexity but shows comparatively inferior performance to optimal maximal ratio combining
(MRC) [392]. On the other hand, multi input single output (MISO) FSO scheme at the transmitter
end is mostly used to transmit the same signal on the separate beams, which is referred as a repetition
coding (RC). Authors in [321] pointed out that MISO FSO based spatial diversity technique combat
the fading effects implementing the multiple laser sources at the receiving end. Moreover, generalized
selective combining (GSC) method recognized as a low complexity diversity scheme to select the best
 Fig. 13: Simplified Illustration of MIMO FSO System.

possible path from subset and combining them using MRC fashion. However, the weak channel estimation
limits the merits of MRC scheme that may degrade the system performance considerably. A simplified
illustration of MIMO FSO system is displayed in Fig. 13.
Likewise RF systems, MIMO technique is very popular to combat turbulence induced multipath fading
increasing the bit rate and quality of signal transmission through spatial multiplexing [392]. Under
this scenario the FSO transceiver serve multiple end users simultaneously using the same frequency
band where multiple co-located antennas provide the larger multiplexing gain. In order to control inter-
user interference, several precoding techniques are studied for multiuser MIMO transmission. Typically,
intensity modulation/direct detection (IM/DD) method is implemented in MIMO-FSO systems, where
IM is used for signal transmission and DD is employed at the receiver. According to [392], nonlinear
precoding schemes attain better performance over linear precoding method, which consider the total
rate capacity of all users but involves increased implementation complexity. For instance, the dirty
paper coding (DPC) cancel out inter-user interference prior to data transmission with full knowledge of
CSI [398]. On the other hand, zero-forcing beamforming (ZFBF) [399] and random unitary beamforming
(RUB) [400] are popular linear precoding schemes have significantly lower implementation complexity.
The precoding matrix is modeled pseudo inverse matrix of selected users in ZFBF, whereas, the precoding
matrix in RUB is designed based on the channel quality of randomly selected users on distinctive
beamforming directions. Reference [401] studied the orthogonal space time block code (OSTBC) and
repetition code (RC) under log-normal fading channels conditions. However, the log-normal atmospheric
channel model is not sufficient when the huge number of heterogeneous devices are connected in 5G
[176]. Recently, numerous research works conducted focusing on MIMO-OSTBC FSO applications due to
higher diversity gain and wide range of FSO applications [402]–[405]. Besides the OSTBC, the RC scheme
outperforms than OSTBC in terms of diversity gain but the RC applications with MIMO is challenging
because of timing asynchronous alignment between transceivers and thereby, resulting the time difference
of signal propagation [406]. The use of repetition coding in MIMO FSO systems endeavoring to combat
turbulence effects by introducing redundancy is studied in [407]. However, several laser beams having
identical frequency are interfere among each other when simultaneously received at the same aperture.
To address timing misalignment of asynchronous MIMO FSO channels, OSTBC based MIMO scheme
offer better performance and robust to inter-symbol interference (ISI) maintain the orthogonality con-
ditions. However, the system performance gap between RC and OSTBC schemes is more significant for
higher order of MIMO FSO systems. Saidi and Hamdi [408] presented BER performance for multihop
hybrid RF/FSO systems using M-ary pulse positon modulation (MPPM) and MIMO technique under
gamma-gamma turbulence channels. The enhancement of average secrecy capacity and improvement
of secrecy outage probability for MIMO-FSO link with equal gain combing reception technique over
gamma-gamma atmospheric turbulence channels is demonstrated first time in literature [409]. Ref [410]
investigated satisfactory BER, power penalty reduction, and outage probability performance for 10
Gb/s QPSK FSO links using aperture averaging receive diversity and MIMO spatial technique. Egh-
bal and Abouei [411] studied received signal intensity of MIMO FSO systems accounting destructive
interference with small variations of path length between optical transmitter and photodetector. A
disaster management method for MIMO-OFDM FSO links employing polarization division multiplexing
(PDM) with Malaga channel model is presented in [412]. With PDM, the two high speed OFDM
signals are mutually orthogonal polarizations is an excellent way to uplift spectral efficiency. Unlike
fibre-based communications, PDM is a suitable choice for FSO systems as it is immune from cross
polarization modulation, polarization mode dispersion and associated losses. Under the proposed scheme,
two different OFDM subcarriers i.e., eve and odd subcarriers are multiplexed using PDM that enable to
transfer two independent data signals on a single wavelength. Das et. al. [413] employed Almouti STBC
transmit diversity and switch-and-examine combining (SEC) scheme at the receiver side for MIMO-FSO
communication systems to investigate ergodic capacity, BER and outage probability over the Malaga
turbulence wireless channels.
X. FSO Transmission in TCP Layer
Numerous research works are conducted focusing on signal re-transmission, re-routing, cross layer
design, delay tolerant networking in the perspectives of transmission control protocol layer in conjunction
with the physical layer [414]–[416].
• Re-transmission: An automatic repeat request (ARQ) is a re-transmission protocol that is commonly
used in reliable data communication. Under this scheme, data transmission is carried out in the set
of certain packet frame lengths. The packet is re-transmitted when the receiver does not acknowledge
after certain period of time. This process is continuing until the positive acknowledgement is received
at the transmitter end. As a result, this go-back-stop-wait N-ARQ re-transmission scheme leads
to high bandwidth penalty, big delay and large power consumption as well. Another technique of
selective repeat ARQ (SR-ARQ) where the packets are repeatedly send from the transmitter without
any feedback response from the receiver end either at data link level or at transport layer. Here,
the receiver unit will continue to accept data packets and acknowledge to the transmitter. If the
acknowledgement is not received after certain time, it presumed to be data lost and transmit again.
On the hand, hybrid ARQ (H-ARQ) combining FEC coding and ARQ error control mechanism
in FSO communications is studied in [416]. It is found that superior performance in terms of
outage probability and BER is obtained under strong turbulence but it suffers high delay latency
and bandwidth penalty. In contrary, cooperative diversity ARQ (C-ARQ) have shown remarkable
performance combating turbulence induced fading in FSO links. In addition, modified C-ARQ (MC-
ARQ) outperforms a lot better by means of lower transmission delay and higher power efficiency
[229]. Rateless Round Robin algorithm is used for error controlling in practical FSO deployment
under strong atmospheric turbulence [417].
• Re-routing: Data path re-routing in between optical link or low bit rate RF link increase the FSO
link reliability during adverse weather conditions. An autonomous dynamic path reconfiguration
including topology control mechanisms and beams re-routing algorithms in the context of hybrid
RF/FSO link is demonstrated in [296]. The proposed method considerably improve the system
reliability but increase the processing delay and net present cost. Therefore, the routing algorithm
should be designed in such a way to minimize re-routing delays or minimum number of hops with
least cost. A common routing protocol called proactive routing where all the possible routes are
calculated in prior and stored in the routing table. However, this scheme is not appropriate for
large-scale networks as it exploit heavy overhead that makes it less bandwidth efficient. Another
routing protocol named reactive routing produce less overhead to the networks in comparison with
former proactive routing. This scheme compute new paths based on real-time demands during the
malfunctions of existing route but it causes prolonged latency of data transmission. Therefore,
hybrid routing scheme combing this two protocols can be employed into clusters of networks for
example proactive algorithms should apply within each cluster and reactive routing policy apply
among different clusters [296].
• QoS control: QoS can be defined in terms of throughput, jitter delay, latency, signal loss, spectral
efficiency and energy efficiency. In order to achieve reliable FSO communication between two nodes,
the designed system should meet the specified requirements satisfying QoS. The primary challenges
to maintain desired QoS in the FSO systems are the fluctuations of delay, data packet rejection ratio,
and overhead. The idea of buffer introducing a IP packet investigation and scheduling processing
according to the QoS specifications and link availability. Reference [418] proposed 10 Gbps buffer
encountered QoS to minimize the packet rejection rate under strong atmospheric conditions in
hybrid RF/FSO networks. According to [418], QoS based buffer scheme provides 8 dB less fading
margin. An efficient scheduling and buffer algorithm, tight error controlling and proper channel
access policies improves the QoS level in medium access control (MAC) layer.
XI. Next Generation FSO Communication Networks
In recent years, FSO systems as an alternative wireless communication technology has gained incredible
attention to cope up high traffic demand in a cost effective way. In addition, FSO technology address the
interference issues and reliable connectivity via high level of security over the existing RF infrastructure.
The FSO inter-channel interference can be limited by the controlling the optical beam width at the
 Fig. 14: Next Generation FSO Networks.

transmitter station. Exploiting the coexistence of RoFSO, OWC/FSO or RF/FSO compensate the
weakness of each channels for the application of intelligent and secured data transmission, battlefield
environment monitoring. FSO established a heterogeneous structure (RF, Coax, FSO, optical fibre) to
provide extreme capacity of wireless services both in ground and space [172]. The optoelectronic devices
for example 100 Gb/s optical source, mach-zehnder modulator (MZM), wavelength division multiplexing
(WDM), photodetector etc. that are being used for high speed fiber optic infrastructure can also be used
in FSO systems. The design of integrating the conventional high data rate signals into FSO systems
allows to transfer terrestrial digital HD TV signals, WLAN, perform 5G communication protocols, and
IoT/IoE wireless services. A performance evaluation of FSO link in terms of BER, SNR, power-in-
bucket using rectangular coherent flat-topped beam in consideration of atmospheric turbulence has been
investigated in [419]. To handle the effect of atmospheric scattering and absorption, all optical relaying
and intermediate repeater approach is demonstrated. Reliability analysis contemplating polarization
shift keying modulated FSO system and optimization of FSO enabled cellular backhauling for the next
generation mobile networks are also investigated in [168]. A simplified illustration of next generation
FSO communication systems is depicted in Fig. 14.
The perfect FSO channel estimation is a challenging task as it involves high cost and power con-
sumption. It is not an appropriate choice in cellular communications system since pilot transmission
deteriorates the data rate. Inspired from this encountered problems, authors [420] proposed deep learning
based low cost and low complexity channel estimation for FSO system. Although blind channel estimation
does not require pilot transmission, in addition, it offers lower complexity but this approach is not realistic
because of fixed channel conditions [421]. Recently, machine learning [422] has attracted to investigate
optical performance monitoring, which is very useful when the system model is complex. On the other
hand, deep learning [423] could solve the complex problems when the input is not enough for computation
and provides dynamic statistical signal processing tools to generate perfect probabilistic channel model
for received data impairments. Deep neural network (DNN) [424], [425] algorithms can be used in high-
level simulation to analyze input data, offering fast response. DNN algorithms is employed for best
modulation scheme identification [426], controlling of optical amplifiers [427], routing paradigms [428],
and quality evaluation of transmitted data signals [429].
From the aforementioned discussion, machine learning (ML) for future generation FSO networks
becomes a hot topic. Few researches are conducted in ML based FSO communication such as detection
purpose [430], error correction for advanced optics [244], and perfect demodulator design for angular
optical beams [431], [432].
 XII. Summary
With the proliferation of diversified multimedia applications, RF systems is not capable to fulfil
the unprecedented demand by IoT, 5G, and beyond communication systems. Various wireless access
technologies have variety range of appealing features with some limitations. It is widely known that
RF and optical wireless technologies (e.g. FSO) perform reciprocal characteristics. The key benefits of
the RF technology are mobility support, transmission performed under LOS/NLOS conditions; provide
wider coverage area, whereas it significantly suffered due to bandwidth shortage, electromagnetic inter-
ference, and smaller throughput performance. On the other hand, FSO systems among all other OWC
technologies offers the potential advantages of longer coverage area and enormous bandwidth. Unlike RF
signal, the optical beam cannot be detected by spectrum analyzers and laser beams cannot penetrate
walls. Moreover, FSO transceiver are easy to deploy, lightweight, compact, easily expandable. The narrow
optical beams between FSO transceiver has the potential to establish electromagnetic interference free
longhaul ultra-speed data communication guaranteeing a greater level of energy efficiency. However, the
reliability issue of FSO communications is degraded due to some limiting factors such as fog, heavy rain,
dense snowfall, thick cloud, pointing errors, scintillation effect, and atmospheric molecular absorption.
An extensive comparison of different optical wireless technologies is carried out at the beginning of
this article to pointing out the key difference of FSO technology compared to other OWC schemes.
Thereafter, the wide range of FSO applications in different perspectives such as space communications,
cyber security, solution of last mile problems, and core networks are clearly described. The recent
advancement of optical light source e.g. solid-state based monochromatic LASER transmitter and the
performance of various photodetectors as optical receivers are explicitly presented pointing on merits
and demerits. The coherence property of laser diodes (LDs) enables fast data transmission with less
interference against LEDs. At the receiver end, PiN photodiode (PD) is a preferable choice for short
distance FSO links; in contrast, Avalanche PD (APD) exhibits satisfactory system performance because
of improved level of receiver sensitivity for longer link distance. The goals of FSO systems are different,
and numerous approaches have been proposed to address reliability issues. Pointing, Acquisition, and
Tracking (PAT) technique to maintain LOS directivity between two endpoints [228]–[230], adaptive
modulation schemes [258]–[267], appropriate channel coding based on different optical wireless link
models [322]–[330], background noise reduction technique [354], spatial diversity mechanisms [227]–
[231], coherent FSO systems [331]–[335], aperture averaging for eddies induced fading [218], adaptive
optics [245], [246] for wavefront fluctuations, relay nodes [247]–[249] to attain high channel gain, and
hybrid FSO systems [367]–[373] to overcome the limitations of a single technology. A number of research
works have been performed to address several technical issues, however, some issues remain. For the
successful deployment of FSO systems, several issues have been counted as paramount research concerns,
including interference mitigation [433]–[435], automatic error correction [436], throughput enhancement
[274], [384], energy efficiency [437]–[439] for 5G, B5G and IoT applications. In addition, the efficient
FSO system design issues for quantum and THz communications [440], [441], multi-hop, multi-user and
cooperative communications based on relay transmission [442]–[448], WDM FSO communications [449]–
[454], adaptive switching mechanism in underwater optical wireless communications [187], horizontal and
vertical handover [455] issues in heterogeneous networks, adaptive user association policies for optimal
load balancing for hybrid FSO systems [456], [457], physical layer security [458]–[468], software defined
FSO networking [469]–[474] issues are also discussed. Thereafter, radio over FSO (RoFSO) technology
is presented in 5G and other communications perspectives [381]. The comprehensive study of MIMO
FSO spatial diversity is studied in [402]–[411] targeting to achieve robust system performance. In light
of existing research works, we focused the prospect of the future generation FSO networks incorporating
machine learning, deep neural networks, efficient routing algorithms, QoS controlling methods.
Table X and Table XI discusses the summary of different FSO systems in terms of distinctive perfor-
mance metrics.
XIII. Research Challenges, Directions and Open Issues
Diverse type of multimedia applications and high data rate digital wireless services offered by 5G and
B5G, the existing RF system is incapable to fulfill the intended data transmission rate. As a result, FSO
scheme offering an ultra-band frequency range of license free spectrum is an attractive viable solution.
FSO communication is typically take place with a narrow directional beam using line-of-sight (LOS)
propagation technique over a long-haul link distance. A 40 GB/s data rate through FSO communication
has already been implemented. Recently, FSO system can cover link distance ranging from nm (inter-
integrated circuit design) to 10000km (ground base to satellite FSO link) [172]. Despite the potential
benefits of FSO, to handle ever-increasing growth of smartphones, cloud big-data, electronic devices,
 TABLE X: Summary of FSO channel capacity and link design
Reference Modulation Link model Ergodic Outage BER/SER Throughput
capacity Probability
[104] OCDMA-WDM, Non fading No No Yes Yes
PPM
[105] OCDMA-WDM, Gamma-Gamma No No Yes Yes
PPM
[295] OOK Non fading No No Yes Yes
[301] OFDMA OOK Rayleigh No No No Yes
[286] M-QAM Gamma-Gamma, Nakagami-m No Yes No Yes
[287] IM/DD BPSK Gamma-Gamma, log-normal No Yes No Yes
[302] OOK Gamma-Gamma No No No Yes
[235] BPSK Gamma-Gamma, Rayleigh Yes Yes No Yes
[280] BPSK Gamma-Gamma, Nakagami-m Yes Yes No No
[281] DBPSK, CBPSK, Gamma-Gamma, Rayleigh Yes Yes Yes No
CBFSK
[288] OOK Rayleigh, Nakagami-m No Yes Yes No
[282] QAM Log-normal Yes Yes Yes No
[256] SIM-BPSK Malaga Yes Yes Yes No
[303] OOK Rician No No No Yes
[236] M-QAM, M-PSK Rician, Malaga Yes Yes Yes Yes
[296] BPSK Rayleigh No Yes Yes Yes
[123] IM/DD,BPSK Gamma-Gamma, Nakagami-m No Yes No No
[283] OOK Gamma-Gamma, Rayleigh Yes Yes Yes No
[274] BPSK, QPSK, 8- Gamma-Gamma No Yes Yes No
PSK
[276] DPSK Gamma-Gamma No Yes Yes No
[289] DBPSK, SIM Rayleigh No Yes Yes No
BPSK
[239] DBPSK, CBPSK, Gamma-Gamma, Nakagami-m No Yes Yes No
CBFSK
[290] OOK Nakagami-m No Yes No No
[291] BPSK Gamma-Gamma No Yes Yes No
[284] BPSK Gamma-Gamma Yes Yes Yes No
[257] SIM (CBFSK, Nakagami-m No Yes Yes No
CBPSK, DBPSK)
[292] OOK Gamma-Gamma No Yes Yes No
[238] OSTBC Nakagami-m No Yes No No
[285] IM/DD BPSK Nakagami-m, Malaga Yes Yes Yes No
[293] IM/DD BPSK Gamma-Gamma, Rayleigh No Yes No Yes
[294] BPSK, DBPSK, Gamma-Gamma No Yes Yes No
BFSK
[297] IM/DD BPSK Nakagami-m, Malaga No No Yes Yes
[275] OOK, BPSK, Generalized Gamma, No Yes Yes Yes
QPSK, M-QAM Nakagami-m
[273] four-level PAM Non fading No No Yes Yes
[298] PAM4 Non fading No No Yes Yes
[299] M-PSK Non fading No No Yes No
[300] M-PSK, DPSK Gamma-Gamma No No Yes No
[234] CBFSK, CBPSK, Generalized Gamma, Yes Yes Yes No
DBPSK Nakagami-m

TABLE XI: Comparison of throughput and latency [5], [202]

Technology Data rate (Gbps) Latency (ms) Communication link
Optical fiber 100 <1 ms E2E
FSO 40 <1 ms E2E
mmWave 10 <1 ms E2E
Microwave 1 <1 ms/hop P2P/P2mP

IoT/IoE devices, artificial intelligence, etc. developing a robust infrastructure is become challenging. We
discussed different application scenarios ranging from residence to space for the FSO links and systems,
still research on fully harvesting the inherent potential are immature. A number of important challenging
problems are need to be figured out for the efficient deployment of FSO systems. In this section, we shed
the light on research challenges, future research directions and open problems related to FSO systems
and application.
A. 5G/B5G and IoT/IoE solutions
It is obvious that FSO is the most emerging technology to support next generation cellular networks
and gigantic connectivity of IoT devices. The substantial deployment of LDs for the FSO technology cre-
ates high inter-cell interference in the 5G/B5G and IoT/IoE networks which become a challenging issue.
In addition, different modulation techniques of LDs may cause flickering (i.e. fluctuation of modulated
signals) [151], thereby avoiding this issue also challenging. A coordinated multipoint (CoMP) enabled
cellular network remarkably reduce the inter-cell interference assuring throughput maximization [437]–
[439]. It is commonly accepted that with the augmentation of deployed OWC nodes lead to increase
the inter-cell interference (ICI). ICI coordination and mitigation techniques in OWC domain have been
studied utilizing the recognized approached used in the RF domain [433]–[435]. It is important to realize
how to manage interference in optical wireless link. A last mile bottleneck problem may arise if the
backhaul system for next generation mobile networks fails to handle an enormous volume of data traffic
to support high speed services at the end users. Hence, the enhancement the FSO backhaul capacity for
data rate improvement to address last mile problem is become a challenging issue. Furthermore, a massive
amount of throughput demand by the access network is generated owing to support huge connectivity
of high data rate devices to the network. Therefore, an extensive backhaul capacity is required to solve
aforementioned issues. Notably user traffic backhauling via distinctive backhaul networks needs precise
synchronization. Some of the future FSO applications include both at cellular backhaul and front haul
levels at the transport and access network levels. Therefore, FSO system optimization for mobile network
backhauling by means of cost and reliability metrics is an important issue.
Finally, machine-learning/deep-learning based networking is one of the prime key in future generation
cellular networks. Nowadays the demand of artificial controlling and remote decision making increasing
which can be tackled by supervised learning such as smart healthcare and smart home load controlling
[49]. Integrating reinforcement learning and machine learning in 6G networks enhance data rate, man-
age network traffic, enables intelligent network re-assignment, automatic error correction and efficient
decision making among surrounding networks [436].
The seamless deployment of IoT devices trigger a demand to incorporate and inter-operate a variety of
hybrid connectivity technologies. For example, numerous applications need the integration of technologies
like RFID, wireless sensor networks (WSN), cloud network using Bluetooth, WiFi, and ZigBee connec-
tivity on to a single or hybrid network. As a consequence, conventional RF spectrum is more congested to
support variety of IoT applications. One promising key technology is hybrid FSO under OWC technology
since it do not interfere with RF spectrum and using the visible light spectrum more than thousand times
the modulation bandwidth of RF signal [475], [476]. To realize the IoT/IoE paradigm, OWC technologies
must evolve to accommodate the huge data volume and expected transmission speed. Because of the
aforementioned benefits exploited by an unregulated OWC technology, FSO will play a key role in the
future IoT connectivity. The co-deployment of FSO and VLC ensure the capability of physical systems
of 5G/B5G network, smart cities (connectivity of heterogeneous wireless services and IoT devices to
urban infrastructure) with a number of thins in synergy to connect and reach [477], [478]. Moreover,
connecting smart devices to IoT and beyond IoT network, FSO plays a core backbone network in a
convenient way adopting OFDM modulation scheme particularly in an indoor environment [479], [480].
Hence, an efficient and practical solution of FSO schemes for the smart approach of internet of everything
(IoE) is a major design factor.
B. THz and Quantum Communications
FSO communication provide high data rates over a long coverage distance of LOS connections es-
pecially in outdoor applications. FSO support some indoor applications like connect devices inside
offices, residences, hospitals, shopping malls etc. The THz spectrum can provide the concrete solution
for the data transmissions in non-LOS (NLOS) applications where the transmitted signal reelected
off by various objects. However, THz wireless system can be applied for both indoor and outdoor
applications with very high data rate including LOS and NLOS links. Therefore, the efficient design
of NLOS FSO in consideration of shadow fading and non-linear channel response is a critical design
issue. On the other hand, the aspect of quantum computing applications achieve extensive secure are
reliable communication in atmosphere and space. So, FSO in optical wireless communications integrating
quantum communication will enter a new era in inter-space links [440], [441].
C. Relay-enabled FSO networks
A terrestrial FSO link performance can be severely degraded by beam misalignment, attenuation and
atmospheric turbulence [481]. In this regard, relay assisted FSO networks has the capability to cope with
atmospheric turbulence through allowing the transmitted data to an intermediate relay node in order to
avoid direct link [303]. A high transmission power can be forced to overcome the degradation of the end-
to-end performance due to such impairments. Nonetheless, such additional transmitted power may affect
the level of secrecy. So, optimal power allocation in RF/FSO hybrid networks is a key concern for the relay
assisted optical wireless systems. The relay assisted buffer based heterogeneous networks for unmanned
area vehicles (UAVs) with fixed and moving relay stations are presented [482]. Multi hop transmission
(i.e., serial) and cooperative diversity (i.e., parallel) relaying are this two types of relay configuration
reported in [173], [311]. Multi hop transmission relaying technique extend the coverage range where the
signal transmitted in between relay node to destination node in a serial fashion. Under parallel relaying
approach, the same information is transmitted to the both receiving node and relay node from the
sending end and thereafter relay node retransmit the data again to the destination node. Data forwarding
protocols using the relay nodes particularly amplify and forward [442], [443] and decode and forward
are discussed in [444], [445]. With the introduction of all optical relaying has the potential to avoid the
need of optical-electrical-optical (OEO) conversion at relay each node [446]–[448]. The cascaded use of
saturation gain semiconductor amplifier (SOA) in FSO systenms are capable of eliminating scintillation,
atmospheric turbulence even without having the knowledge of channel state information (CSI) [446],
[483], [484]. However, the idea of relay assisted networking is established for RF technology, still the
scope of relaying is immature in optical wireless communication literature.
D. WDM FSO Links
The integration of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) techniques with FSO communication
pushes toward a new dimension by expanding the capacity of FSO links. With the introduction of dense
WDM (DWDM), FSO systems capacity can be greatly enhanced [449]–[453]. A realization of 320 Gbps
LOS/Long WDM FSO links were developed and experimented using OOK modulation [449] and a FSO
link of 200 Gb/s bit rate is demonstrated in [453]. The outage probability of WDM FSO links in the
presence of inter-channel crosstalk and turbulence is analyzed [450]. On the other hand, optical CDMA
technique received more attention for future FSO networks to support ever-increasing user demand
especially fiber to the home (FTTH) service via optical access network. A few research works [295],
[454] have been devoted on OCDMA-WDM optical ring networks in the context of FSO communication
considering pointing error effect using received diversity which provides augmented capacity and overall
system performance as well. Multi wavelength (MW) OCDMA offers an attractive solution to enhance
channel capacity by means of reducing multi access interference (MAI) and crosstalk. A combined solution
of WDM-OCDMA support massive number of simultaneous users over conventional WDM scheme and
also enable dynamic add/drop function for the next generation access network [454]. The study of hybrid
DWDM-MIMO FSO communications [485] is conducted aiming to increase transmission coverage with
minimum BER and outage probability taking into account severe weather conditions. Despite the recent
advances, more research is needed to contemplate low cost and high speed integrated FSO WDM links
under different scenarios such as terrestrial, point coverage, cellular coverage, LOS, transmission range,
fixed or mobile relay structure.
E. Channel Characterization
Over the past few decades, various channel models namely log-normal, lognormal-Rician and Gamma-
Gamma distributions have been proposed to quantify the impact fading properties and turbulence effect
of FSO links [167]. The performance of FSO links is heavily affected by atmospheric turbulence such
as scattering, scintillation, air absorption, free space loss and refraction. Besides, storm, fog, heavy rain
and dust may severely degrade the successful communication link between transmitter and receiver in
the outdoor environment. Hence, the mitigation technique to address atmospheric turbulence is difficult
issue. Statistical modeling of combining the effect of atmospheric turbulence, mobility of obstacles, and
pointing error of intensity fluctuation of receive optical signal has been a challenging research issue.
The power allocation and the link performance is strongly depends on atmospheric loss [61] which may
lead to scope to research for the counterbalancing of the atmospheric loss. A high speed NLOS data
communication in UV band is a significant option [211]. A methodological assessment in consideration of
transceiver geometrical configurations, atmospheric conditions and effective channel modeling is still the
issue of future research. However, modeling of optical scattering communication (OSC) channel is more
difficult than traditional LOS FSO links. This is due to the longer link range pushes the complexity
of combined modeling attenuation and multiple scattering [9]. Therefore, designing the channel and
system models that capture different limiting factors of OSC is become a great interest particularly for
connecting distributed objects in IoT devices. The application of MIMO with optical wireless technology
is quite challenging due to the characteristics of IM/DD channel [25]. The application of MIMO could
lead increase the hardware complexity and may limit its application. However, the deployment of MIMO
with accurate channel modeling is a good research issue.
F. Pointing, Acquisition, and Tracking (PAT)
In general, FSO transmitter have a broadband and point-to-point directional link in a beeline be-
tween the sending node and destination. PAT scheme are typically incurred in static and mobile FSO
communication systems when transceiver shoot out narrow beams and the divergence of the beams is
smaller than a few µrad (micro-radian) [170]. This ultra-narrow beam property results high speed data
rate, long reach span, less interference, and more energy efficient along the FSO link. The properties
of narrow spectral beam make the FSO link more difficult to build between two endpoints. A precise
LOS direction of transmission link is required to maintain connectivity between endpoints. However, PAT
problems have not completely addresses despite its promising significance. For the successful deployment
of PAT mechanism, an integrated and flexible hardware architecture is need to be developed for dynamic
PAT.
Under the pointing mechanism, FSO node starts to coordinate the potential nodes existing in the free
space prior connection procedure in mmWave networks [486], [487]. Therefore, synchronizing between
coordinating nodes is an inherent network design issue related to the pointing mechanism. The acquisition
mechanism associated with the modulation-demodulation techniques. FSO receiver aperture is designed
such a way that it can accepts multiple optical beams, then the receiver decides the desired signed for
decoding. As an indication of physical architecture, the dimension of receiver aperture required to be
adjusted based on the divergence angle emitted from the laser beam the distance [488]. Such technique
substantially reduce outage probability, high date transfer rate and enhance the efficiency of power
budget. The tracking mechanism is related to the problem raised by narrow spectral beam property.
The link performance is heavily depends on the geometric alignment of transmitter and receiver and
beam shape as well. Tracking mechanism under mobile transceivers, a misalignment of optical beams
results to increase the outage probability and reduce the available capacity [489]. On the other hand,
very high pointing accuracy is to be maintained between stationary transceivers.
The recent growing interest of an intelligent transportation system such as V2V, V2I, or Vehicle-
to-everything (V2X) require to keep LOS connectivity with vehicle [455], [490]. The optical wireless
technology can be applied for traffic management [491]. Such scenario cause a challenge for signal
acquisition and tracking in the presence of dense building in an urban areas. The high speed moving
vehicle for instance, cars, electric trains, or unmanned area vehicles may be the challenging task for
FSO system in the area of V2X communications. An agile PAT mechanism can keep track with the
high speed vehicles to handle the optical link between V2X [492]. In addition, the development of PAT
scheme in smaller size and low complexity required by the mobile systems (e.g., battery powered drone)
is a challenging issue. The design of a suitable PAT model to provide multi-directional coverage and has
the ability to mitigate vibration is another interested area. Moreover, a directive PAT mechanism is an
important feature where the laser beam focused towards the moving direction of the tracked vehicle is
another scope to research. This directive mechanism for mobile FSO communication reduce reduces the
handover time with the advance knowledge of trajectory object. On disadvantage of this mechanism the
error incurred due to mismatch of the actual and expected speed of vehicle, therefore, it needs GPS or
other localization technology support. A time synchronization between two transceivers in PAT process
is another crucial issue. As a solution, transceivers allow to exchange control information, channel state
information such as location, mobility, and time for synchronized alignment.
G. Underwater communication (UWC)
Nowadays UWC received much attention for oil pipe investigation, offshore monitoring, and object
detection. Long coverage distance and high speed optical links is the much priority in many UWC
applications. The adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) technique in underwater environments is an
important issue [143]. Moreover, the adaptive switching mechanism between an acoustic and optical
mode for hybrid optical/acoustic networks in underwater is needed for various applications [187].
H. FSO Networking
5G/B5G technology is comprised with ultra-dense heterogeneous networks (a combination of mixed
networks such as macrocell-pico cell, macrocell-femto cell, macrocell-microcell) to increase the data
transportation capacity. A small cell dense heterogeneous networks (HetNet) will generate frequent
handover between optical and RF networks which could lead many needless handover [493]. Thus,
controlling an unwanted handover and the ping-pong effect is a crucial issue. Supporting of two different
type of receivers (heterogeneous) is important for hybrid FSO networks. The properties of RF-based
transceiver and the optical transceiver are different, the both networks must be active simultaneously
for the hybrid framework. Thus, combining the two different architectures in the same platform and the
same data transmission over the distinctive systems simultaneously is a vital issue. On the other hand, the
distinctive nature of physical layer properties and data link layer for the hybrid optical and RF wireless
networks arise a major challenge for the mobility support. A suitable handover algorithm may overcome
the continuity user mobility applications. It is important to enable horizontal handover [24] and vertical
handover [146] mechanisms to allow seamless user mobility. For example, a user can seamlessly move
around LiFi cells (horizontal handover) and among LiFi and WiFi networks (vertical handover) under
LiFi—WiFi hybrid systems [46]. Meanwhile, the effect of user mobility based on channel estimation and
handover is also challenging. The time taken for handover process should be short enough to meet the
specification of 5G/B5G. The time taken for exchanging the information between user equipment and
central station depends on the algorithms [494], [495]. Note that a smaller coverage area incurred large
handover and wireless optical channel is vulnerable to channel barrier due to handover. Also, a precise
handover is required for switching among the backhauling networks. The challenging of backhauling
include the continuous change of pointing of backhaul link for the moving objects.
I. Load Balancing
The effective user association policy among the different available access network is a research concern.
An optimal user association mechanism solve the joint resource allocation and user allocating problem
[456]. User equipment (UE) may need to be transferred to different access point for better performance
under load balancing technique [457]. Therefore, optimal load balancing can be considered as a potential
technical issue.
J. Physical Layer Security
According to [458], optical wireless communications e.g. FSO networks are vulnerable to cyber-attacks
at the physical layer. In recent years, the security and privacy issues of FSO communications received
growing interest in the presence of external eavesdropper. Unlike the conventional encryption in top
layer, no secret code is needed in physical layer security for long FSO communications. Authors in
[459] analyzed secrecy outage probability (SOP) of FSO schemes taking into account of an external
eavesdropper with generic orientation at the physical layer. A new framework focusing on misalignment
error and corresponding approximate and asymptotic solutions for the non-orthogonal light beams at
the eavesdropper receiver is proposed. An external eavesdropping cause the larger beam waist compared
to the receiver size due to the pulse spreading of optical beam through wireless link. An extensive
analysis of FSO physical layer security for multiple input single output (MISO), MIMO systems, and
cooperative systems are reported in [460]–[462] respectively. The state-of-the-art of physical layer security
is still immature for FSO communications. The SOP analysis over the Malaga turbulence channels
without accounting pointing errors is pointed out in [463], [464]. The impact of channel impairments on
physical layer security for mixed RF/FSO relay architectures is clearly presented in [465]. The average
secrecy capacity (ASC) analysis under active eavesdropping for mixed RF/FSO relay networks based on
decode-and-forward (DF) is studied in [466], [467]. The performance of ASC is examined over Malaga
turbulence for zero boresight misalignment errors without considering eavesdropper location in [468]. It
is important to investigate nonzero boresight pointing errors distributions in the FSO channels including
eavesdropper’s location and orientation in order to realize realistic scenarios on secrecy performance.
K. Software Defined Networking (SDN) Control
SDN can effectively control and manage the hybrid optical networks through SDN controller under
dense deployment [469]. However, several OWC applications based on network demand such as traffic
re-routing, network flaw management and security issue can be handled by the first application layer in
SDN system [470]. On the other hand, updating the flow control, network selection mechanism along with
other essential control can be performed in the control layer [471]. SDN technology can be incorporated
into FSO system for the purpose of minimization of energy consumption through data traffic controlling.
The approach of real time applications and virtualizing of network function in SDN system can be the
emerging research issue.
Extending the optical spectrum beyond UV band allows the advantages from high power and lower cost
light sources [9] which is another research issue. The RF-enabled indoor positioning systems are greatly
affected by multipath fading and penetration loss [472], [473]. Both indoor and outdoor positioning with
greater accuracy using free space optics can be one of the potential research issue. In order to guarantee
data loss reduction, selection of optimal transmitter among multiple nodes, and delay minimization,
the seamless steering of transferred information become an eminent challenging problem. The optical
wireless system is usually designed for downlink communications purpose because of some challenges
in uplink direction such as energy constraint of portable devices and the limitations of narrow beam
controlling for mobile devices. Hence, the uplink transmission is open research issue that need to be
addressed. A few research works have conducted of RF/optical hybrid wireless from the perspective of
physical layer whereas barely focus on data-link level metrics [474]. The QoS analysis tool of cross layer
design between physical and data link layer is an important research zone.
XIV. Conclusions
The design of pervasive and efficient wireless systems for a wide range of transmission links is essential
to meet ever-increasing higher data rate demands in the next generation communication networks. Owing
to spectrum scarcity of radio-frequency (RF) counterparts, free space optical (FSO) communication
has been recognized as a promising option for next generation optical networking that can support
tremendous traffic demand initiated from the internet of things/everything (IoT/IoE) devices and next-
generation cellular communication systems. The realization of unlicensed extremely wide optical band
can fulfill the exponential growth of traffic demand and complementarily overcome the RF spectrum
shortage in a cost effective way. The aggregate deployment of hybrid wireless system offering different
features can suppress the limitations of a single network either standalone RF or optical wireless and
make a prominent alternative over RF based communication systems. In this review paper, we have
discussed the brief overview of promising OWC technologies from various viewpoints. An extensive
research on the deployment issues of different FSO wireless networks addressing the related challenges are
underway. Principle, advantages, limitations, design issues, mitigation techniques, significance, worldwide
achievements, state-of-the-art of recent developments and revolutions free space optical communications
are presented. Advancements of hybrid FSO, coherent FSO, FSO link budget, research challenges of
FSO infrastructure deployment of different application scenarios such as acoustic underwater communi-
cation, 5G and B5G communication, FSO-IoT/IoE interface are demonstrated. Provisioning of quality
of experience (QoE), massive connectivity, high capacity, tight security, low power consumption are also
focused in perspective of the coexistence FSO and RF wireless technology. The opportunities triggered
by FSO schemes as well as network architecture, application scenarios, the key research directions, the
solutions of major challenges for a successful deployment of the considered framework in the context
of wireless communication and IoT paradigms are also briefly pointed out. It can be concluded that
FSO is increasingly becoming a prominent technology for future generation communication system and
extending the realm of FSO technology in indoor, healthcare, industry, offices, shopping malls, offices,
stadiums, residences, transportation, space and terrestrial environments. This survey paper provides
valuable resource for clear understanding the recent research contribution optical free space communi-
cation in different implications and is anticipated to persuade further effort for the eminent deployment
of other OWC systems in the forthcoming years.
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