Jamming Threats in Free-Space Optics

Free space optical (FSO) technology has recently found a strong foothold in the telecommunication market due to its technical superiority and high-end applicability. Its technological advancement has caused rising implementation of FSO systems in defence, aerospace, and telecommunication industries. Although it is cutting edge, the fundamental benefits of this technology may be adversely affected by several foreign elements such as atmospheric turbulence, physical obstructions, and weather conditions. Along with these natural disrupting phenomena, for the deployment of FSO systems in security-constrained sectors like military and defence units, where extra data protection mechanism is needed, fabricated adversaries like jamming become feasible which is concerning for FSO applicability. It therefore becomes a challenging task to decipher legitimate FSO data in the presence of jammers and to secure an FSO system from jamming activities. On this account, a detailed discussion on jamming effects in FSO communication systems is showcased in this article. Also, the potential efforts to mitigate jamming in FSO networks are highlighted.