Implementation of 10 Gbps optical wireless link for 200 km inter-aircraft optical communications

Abstract The enhancements related to optical devices are highly required for high-speed compact wireless optical transmission systems. This paper focuses on development and analysis of the communication system for inter-aircraft applications. The vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is employed at the transmitter for generating directly modulated non-return to zero (NRZ) signal. Direct detection along with Gaussian low pass filtering is employed in the receiver. The performance of the system is examined as well as compared with and without application of filtering at the receiver. The performance of optical wireless system is analyzed in terms of BER, eye-pattern, sensitivity, SNR, and Q-factor. The data rate is enhanced by 4-fold and transmission distance is improved by 250% in comparison with earlier inter-satellite links.