Optiwave Systems, Inc. had helped us tremendously in our efforts to model Free Space Optical (FSO) communication systems by providing our research group with Optisystem 16 simulation software. Optisystem 16 accurately emulated the random effects of the atmosphere on the propagation of an optical field in an atmospheric medium and allowed modifications to the FSO system to take place instantly. The software’s visualizer library granted us access to virtual tools that allowed us to obtain data on critical parameters of our designs, such as bit error rates, transmitted and received signal power, and signal to noise ratio; results from these visualizer tools were used in a technical conference paper. Optisystem 16 also provided an extensive library of analog and digital modulation components that we used to compare modulation techniques such as OOK and 2-PAM modulation. Optiwave Systems technical support was also readily available when a technical issue occurred while we were using the software, and the issues were resolved in minutes. Had Optiwave Systems not so generously offered us their Optisystem 16 software, the data we had obtained in a short span of two months for six different FSO topologies would have taken several months, possibly a year, to acquire.
Figure 1: Dr. Hemani Kaushal, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of North Florida.