Multirate fractal free space optical communications using fountain codes
S.M. Navidpour, Belal Y. Hamzeh, M. Kavehrad · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2005
Wireless Free Space Optics (FSO) is one of the most promising candidates for future broadband communications, offering transmission rates far beyond possible by RF technology. However, free space wireless optical channel presents far more challenging conditions for signals than typical RF channels, making system availability and throughput a critical issue. Multirate fractal modulation has been considered to address adverse channel conditions in FSO systems. In this paper, channel coding for such a multirate communications scenario is discussed. Specifically, we have used Fountain Codes, a new class of erasure correction codes, in concatenation with an inner Convolutional code. We argue that for a parallel multirate system Fountain coding is a flexible method for receiving data from multiple streams.