Unraveling “Fiber in the Sky”: Terabit Capacity Enabled by Coherent Optical Wireless

The quest for high-speed optical wireless communications is now entering a new and ambitious phase of pursuing fiber-like capacity over the air. However, legacy optical wireless technologies relying on simple intensity modulation and direct detection will not be up to the challenge of providing Terabit data-rates for wireless communications. Benefitting from the latest developments on coherent optical fiber transceivers, unprecedented optical wireless capacity can now be achieved, effectively enabling the wireless delivery of Terabit-range data-rates. In this work, we exploit advanced features provided by state-of-the-art coherent transceivers, such as symbol-rate and bit-rate adaptability, to enhance the trade-off between capacity and reliability in optical wireless systems impaired by atmospheric turbulence, pointing errors, and Doppler shift. Targeting the digital mitigation of these challenges, a set of different field trials is provided, demonstrating the viability of per-channel bit-rates in the range of 400 Gb/s to 1 Tb/s, applicable to both terrestrial and SatCom scenarios.