Simulation of the influence of atmospheric conditions on low-cost optical free space link

The team of authors was concerned in the development and construction of low-cost free space optical link and simulations of the influence of atmospheric conditions on this link. The article contains description of electronic design and attention is also dedicated to simulations of atmospheric conditions. Gradually, the most frequently occurring atmospheric conditions and their impact on the available bit rates were tested. An integral part of the article is calculation of the energy balance of the whole link. At the end are shown images of the measured eye diagrams and samples of measured distribution of optical power using a digital camera and its processing in MATLAB.