Optical Communication Through Low-Visibility Weather

By exploiting the scattered light, it is possible to improve atmospheric optical communication through low-visibility weather. This paper summarizes the multiple-forward-scatter propagation model for a line-of-sight optical link operating in low-visibility weather. Using this model, digital communication performances for diffraction-limited and wide field-of-view receivers are compared. It is shown that background-light suppression is the key to extended link operability in the daytime. Recent work on space-distributed phase compensation techniques for achieving this suppression is described.