Delay Tolerant Networking for free-space optical communication systems

Abstract

Free-space optical communication (FSOC) systems will be an important part of future networking infrastructures. With the growth in demand from users - both commercial and military - and the scarcity of available RF spectrum, FSOC has the potential to offer a solution. FSOC capacity can easily reach 10psilas Gbps or more over useful ranges. However, the ability to construct an FSOC network has many challenges such as pointing, acquisition and tracking; propagation impairments like weather; eye safety and others. In many of these cases, this will result in an intermittently-connected network, though of tremendous capacity on a per-link basis. This paper examines the applicability of delay tolerant networking (DTN) approaches to such networks and proposes a new routing algorithm that is tailored for the FSOC network characteristics.