Experimental real-time GbE MIMO FSO under fog conditions with software defined GNU Radio platform-based adaptive switching

In this paper, we demonstrate the first, to our knowledge, experimental implementation of a gigabit Ethernet multiple input single output free space optical (FSO) communications link using adaptive switching implemented in the software defined open-source software, GNU Radio, and analyze its performance. A fully functional FSO link with a feedback path is implemented using cost effective off-the-shelf components, i.e., media converters and small form-factor pluggable modules. We propose a switching mechanism at the transmitter to improve the link performance under different fog conditions and provide results for the proposed FSO system compared with a single FSO link. The real-time channel estimation is demonstrated and, based on the channel state information, adaptive switching is carried out in GNU Radio. We show that the proposed system under the heavy fog condition offers almost the same packet error rate under the clear channel but with a reduced data rate by about 100 Mbps (i.e., 600 Mbps).