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Given the increased interest in aerial communications, Free-space Optics (FSO) has gained considerable attention for its ability to deliver wider bandwidth, license-free and secure communication. FSO was initially developed for fixed platforms. As such, the current push to introduce mobility is one of the greatest challenges for FSO developers. This paper presents the first open-loop alignment/stability analysis of hovering multirotors proven to maintain an FSO link despite inherent instability. Communication distance, wavelength, and platform deviation are among the many parameters evaluated in our model. We characterize fiber-bundle transceivers, as an example of optical arrays, and their applicability to aerial FSO communication. Our simulation is based on static lab measurements combined with theoretical analysis and optical geometrical intersection models. Analyses indicated that rotational deviation has a much higher impact on performance than translational deviation. Current commercial multirotor platforms proved adequate for future FSO communication, with 16 to 30% expected throughput when employing suitable optical arrays. We conducted a parametric sweep test to determine optimal and marginal receiver parameters based on platform characteristics and performance metrics. This analysis was conducted and reported as one example of the many applications that our developed mathematical models support.

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Hybrid Free Space Optics (FSO)/Radio Frequency (RF) communication systems have emerged as a way to improve network performance by providing enhanced availability and reliability. In an effort to mitigate individual drawbacks in the optical link during adverse weather conditions, network traffic flows simultaneously between channels. Based on the Shannon-Hartley theorem, channel capacity is dependent, among others, on both the signal to noise ratio (SNR) and channel bandwidth. As such, combined link throughput may be affected by channel state conditions. Because atmosphere turbulence can be modeled as a time-varying fading channel, capacity analysis can be investigated. In this paper, authors apply various availability scenarios of channel state information (CSI) on the optical link to derive closed-form expressions for combined link capacity. Numerical simulation provides a comparison to the results.Keywords-Hybrid FSO/RF link, channel capacity, channel state information (CSI), reconfiguration, and lognormal fading.

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A significant challenge for free-space optical (FSO) links is the restrictive alignment requirements, especially when the transceivers are moving. For moderate distances and rapid unpredictable motion, the receiver's field of view and the positioning system's dynamics become factors. We explore the use of adaptive transmitter power and beam divergence to improve the likelihood of maintaining a mobile FSO link by using Gaussian beam propagation theory and link budgets. We calculate the allowable misalignment between the transceivers' optical axes as a function of power, divergence, and transceiver distance. The maximum allowable error is independent of the distance, except when the field of view is a limiting factor. Certain combinations of divergence and power, while suboptimal for one distance, provide a relaxed misalignment limit for many distances. Based on the calculations, we make initial suggestions for system design.

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