On Divergence-Angle Efficiency of a Laser Beam in Free-Space Optical Communications for High-Speed Trains

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an adaptive beam that adapts its divergence angle according to the receiver aperture diameter and the communication distance to improve the received power and ease the alignment between the communicating optical transceivers in a free-space optical communications (FSOC) system for high-speed trains (HSTs). We compare the received power, signal-to-noise ratio, bit error rate, and the maximum communication distance of the proposed adaptive beam with a beam that uses a fixed divergence angle of 1 mrad. The proposed adaptive beam yields a higher received power with an increase of 33 dB in average over the fixed-divergence beam under varying visibility conditions and distance. Moreover, the proposed adaptive divergence angle extends the communication distance of a FSOC system for HSTs to about three times under different visibility conditions as compared to a fixed divergence beam. We also propose a new ground transceiver placement that places the ground transceivers of a FSOC system for HSTs on gantries placed above the train passage instead of placing them next to track. The proposed transceiver placement provides a received-power increase of 3.8 dB in average over the conventional placement of ground-station transceivers next to the track. Index Termsfree-space optical communications, optical wireless communications, high-speed trains, beam divergence, adaptive divergence angle.

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