Free space optical communications (FSO) have the potential to substantially improve communications technology in terms of channel capacity and offer an alternative to their RF counterpart. Additional characteristics related to security, immunity, flexibility and low cost issues render FSO a reasonable candidate for military applications. FSO technology does not come without challenges. Its major issue is the local meteorological parameters that give rise to various atmospheric phenomena. The purpose of this work is to facilitate the performance prediction of an FSO communication link over a maritime environment by utilizing macroscopic meteorological parameters, i.e. air temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, air pressure, dew point, solar radiation and sea temperature, obtained from point measurements. The received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of the FSO receiver has been utilized as the performance metric of the channel and a closed form expression has been deduced. The model has then been validated against real meteorological data and the predicted RSSI values exhibited a reasonably strong correlation with the observed ones. Atmospheric turbulence has been taken into account using the Navy Surface Layer Model (NAVSLaM) to estimate the structure index parameter from the same meteorological data and thus allowed for a statistical correlation between the refractive index structure parameter and RSSI.

自由空间光通信（FSO）有潜力在信道容量方面大大改善通信技术，并提供替代其RF同类产品的能力。与安全性，抗扰性，灵活性和低成本问题相关的其他特征使FSO成为军事应用的合理选择。FSO技术并非没有挑战。它的主要问题是引起各种大气现象的当地气象参数。这项工作的目的是通过利用从以下位置获得的宏观气象参数，即气温，风速，相对湿度，气压，露点，太阳辐射和海水温度，来促进海上环境中FSO通信链路的性能预测。点测量。FSO接收机的接收信号强度指示符（RSSI）已被用作信道的性能指标，并推导了闭式表达式。然后，该模型已针对实际的气象数据进行了验证，并且预测的RSSI值与观测值之间显示出相当强的相关性。已使用海军表面层模型（NAVSLaM）考虑了大气湍流，以根据相同的气象数据估算结构指数参数，从而实现了折射率结构参数与RSSI之间的统计相关性。然后，该模型已经针对实际的气象数据进行了验证，并且预测的RSSI值与观测值之间显示出相当强的相关性。已使用海军表面层模型（NAVSLaM）考虑了大气湍流，以根据相同的气象数据估算结构指数参数，从而实现了折射率结构参数与RSSI之间的统计相关性。然后，该模型已针对实际的气象数据进行了验证，并且预测的RSSI值与观测值之间显示出相当强的相关性。已使用海军表面层模型（NAVSLaM）考虑了大气湍流，以根据相同的气象数据估算结构指数参数，从而实现了折射率结构参数与RSSI之间的统计相关性。