Abstract
Radio frequency spectrum is too crowded and expensive to install new broadband channels. Free space optical (FSO) communication is a viable technology, which offers enormous bandwidth, license-free spectrum and non-interfering nature. But the FSO link deteriorates significantly due to the atmospheric turbulence and sever weather conditions (fog, cloud and snow). Hybrid FSO/RF communication system with independent coding scheme has been suggested in the literature. But such systems are expensive and have synchronization issue. We propose a hybrid FSO/RF communication system with joint coding scheme. A novel puncturing optimization algorithm is developed, which adaptively tackle fading effects of the individual communication link. The proposed puncturing algorithm gives more than 3 dB power gain over the fixed system.