Performance analysis of hybrid FSO/RF system

Abstract

With its high data rate capacity and wide bandwidth in an unregulated spectrum, FSO communication is a promising solution to the “last mile” problem, however its performance is highly vulnerable to adverse atmospheric conditions. In this paper, we suggest a hybrid FSO/RF system in which an RF link is used as a back-up of the FSO link. To determine the threshold value to switch from the FSO to RF system, we perform a channel modeling of the FSO and RF links and then compute the received power and SNR under various weather conditions. Through performance simulations, we suggest the optimum threshold value to switch from the FSO to RF system.