AraOptical System and Testbed for Long-Range, High-Capacity FSOC in Rural Wireless X-Haul Networks#

Md Nadim (Iowa State University) et al. (UC Irvine, Ohio State; Hongwei Zhang, Iowa State)

• Why: This is free-space optical x-haul — physical-layer transport work with real 10+ km field deployment, quantitative scintillation/weather characterization, and a publicly available testbed and dataset. Given your optics and DC/WAN-interconnect focus, this is the conference's main physical-optics presence.
• What: R-Optical, a first-of-its-kind 10+ km terrestrial FSOC x-haul system, permanently deployed as a public research testbed. Demonstrated 2.92 Gbps on a single channel, with a path to 160 Gbps aggregate via 16 channels of 10G SFP+ and multi-Tbps potential with 100G/400G coherent transceivers; also quantifies scintillation and weather impact on long-range FSOC (from abstract only).
• How: Optimized COTS components (feedback-controlled LNAs, router-compatible transceivers), a novel multi-level auto-alignment algorithm for telescope pointing, and a software framework with custom APIs for real-world experimentation.
• Where applicable: Rural x-haul and broadband backhaul, not datacenter interconnect — but the deployment-lessons (alignment, sun noise, weather fades at 10 km) and the open measurement data are valuable reference material for anyone evaluating FSOC's maturity. US rural-deployment context; COTS-based, so components are obtainable.