Anand N Sarma
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tiruvananthapuram
Anand N Sarma is Assistant Professor at School of Earth, Environmental and Sustainability Sciences, IISER Thiruvananthapuram. He completed his PhD in 2020 at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. His research interests are atmospheric optics, aerosols, atmospheric boundary layer, optical turbulence, and free-space optical communication. He was elected as Associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 2023.
Session 2B: Inaugural Lectures by Fellows/Associates
Anil K. Gupta, IIT Kharagpur
Laser communication through turbulent and turbid atmosphere
Optical wireless communication, commonly known as Free-Space Optical (FSO) communication, is an emerging technology which facilitates unprecedented channel capacity and large bandwidth, favouring huge volume of data transfer across distant locations. Scintillation and beam wander resulting from optical phase distortions, along with absorption and scattering in the atmospheric channels, can adversely affect the performance of FSO links. This lecture will provide a brief introduction to the effects of atmospheric aerosols (tiny solid/liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere) and refractive index fluctuations on optical propagation through turbulent and turbid atmosphere. Synergized analysis of data from surface, atmospheric boundary layer, balloon, and multi-satellite observations, along with radiative transfer calculations, is used to discuss the combined role of lower atmospheric turbulence and aerosols on FSO communication. The need for region-specific atmospheric optical turbulence models and long-term meteorological observations in improving the efficiency of FSO communication links will be highlighted.