Free Space Optical (FSO) networks are increasingly of interest because of their ability to deliver very high data rates 'through the air'. They are being applied to an expanding set of diverse application areas, e.g., satellite crosslinks and downlinks to earth and airborne platforms, communication among aircraft, metro short haul applications, telecom/wireless front and back haul, and datacenter networks, all of which are struggling to keep pace with the deluge of data that is now part of every enterprise. This project will organize and run a workshop with the goals of identifying the key research challenges, open problems and major opportunity areas associated with FSO. The output of the workshop will help guide the future research investigations of the CISE and ENG communities.
Free space optical (FSO) communication networks are important because of the very high bit rates they can potentially deliver 'through the air'. In addition to traditional application areas (e.g., satellite crosslinks and downlinks to earth and airborne platforms, communication among aircraft), a diverse set of new applications areas is emerging (e.g., metro short haul applications, telecom/wireless front and back haul, and datacenter networks). These systems have been leveraging traditional telecom technologies, which are delivering programmable, high-bit rate, spectrally efficient transmission in ever-smaller form factors. Beyond this, there is the emergence of new technologies (e.g. silicon nanophotonics, phased arrays, long-wavelength sources), advances in signal processing and interaction with the networking layer which may have the potential to enable a significant "leap" in FSO capabilities. The workshop this project will run is therefore very timely; it will bring together a community covering both a wide array of application areas and new technologies to identify the major challenges and opportunities for FSO systems. The workshop output will be used to guide future research investigations within CISE and ENG communities. The variety of FSO application areas to be discussed (e.g., indoor vs. outdoor, long vs. short range) also suggests considerable opportunity for technical cross-fertilization among diverse research groups.
