Characterization of dual-polarization LTE radio over a free-space optical turbulence channel.

A dual polarization (DP) radio over a free-space optical (FSO) communication link using a long-term evolution (LTE) radio signal is proposed and analyzed under different turbulence channel conditions. Radio signal transmission over the DP FSO channel is experimentally verified by means of error vector magnitude (EVM) statistics. We demonstrate that such a system, employing a 64 quadrature amplitude modulation at the frequency bands of 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz, evinces reliability with <8% of EVM in a turbulent channel. Based on the results, we show that transmitting the LTE signal over the FSO channel is a potential solution for last-mile access or backbone networks, when using multiple-input multiple-output based DP signals.