Calculation and Comparison of Turbulence Attenuation by Different Methods

Abstract

This paper is focused on the effect of turbulence in atmospheric transmission media. A short introduction of the origin of turbulent atmosphere is given. Two classical methods for the calculation of turbulence attenuation are mentioned and briefly described in the paper – the Rytov approximation and Andrews’s method, and a new technique designed by the authors of this paper – the method of available power – is presented in short as well. We have run simulations in Matlab to compare the results of turbulence attenuation given by the classical methods and by the new technique - the method of available power. These calculations were performed for communication wavelengths of 850 nm and 1550 nm. The distance between the optical transmitter and receiver of horizontal links was set to values ranging from 0 m to 2500 m. We have taken into account the homogenous turbulence with low (10^-16 m^-2/3), medium (10^-15 m^-2/3) and high (10^-14 m^-2/3) structure parameter of refractive index Cn2.