Abstract: Electromagnetic-based wireless technology provides two major advantages to the end user, mobility and freedom from wired medium connectivity. However, it has a major disadvantage that limits high-quality and high-bandwidth service applicability, small product {(bit rate) x (distance)}. As such, the applicability of this technology has been limited to short range access. A wireless technology that delivers very high bandwidth is free space optical or FSO. FSO technology was initially deployed in point-to-point topologies, but recently FSO has become more pervasive in mesh topology, promising better survivability, ultra-high bandwidth and longer reach for communications and data. When FSO is combined with WDM technology, then the transportable bandwidth is yet higher and WDM-FSO becomes suitable to disperse-grid super-computing. In such case, WDM FSO combined with short-distance E-M wireless clusters, allows for a large product {bit rate} x {distance} which can be several orders of magnitude than pure E-M technology. In this talk, we describe the FSO and the WDM technologies as well as the mesh WDM-FSO applicable to communications, data and grid supercomputing, and we make comparisons between EM-based and mesh WDM FSO technologies.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Stamatios V. Kartalopoulos, PhD, is currently the Williams Professor in Telecommunications Networking at the University of Oklahoma. His research emphasis is on optical communication networks (FSO, long haul and FTTH), optical technology including optical metamaterials, and optical communications security including quantum cryptography and chaotic functions. Prior to this, he was with Bell Laboratories where he defined, led and managed research and development teams in the areas of DWDM networks, SONET/SDH and ATM, Cross-connects, Switching, Transmission and Access systems. He has received the President’s Award and many awards of Excellence.
He holds nineteen patents in communications networks, and has published more than two hundred scientific papers, ten reference textbooks in advanced fiber optic communications and security, and has contributed several chapters to other books.
He has been an IEEE and a Lucent Technologies Distinguished Lecturer and has lectured at universities, NASA and conferences internationally. He has been keynote speaker of major international conferences, has moderated executive forums, has been a panelist of interdisciplinary panels, and has organized symposia, workshops and sessions at major international communications conferences.
Dr Kartalopoulos is an IEEE Fellow, chair and founder of the IEEE ComSoc Communications & Information Security Technical Committee, member at large of IEEE New Technologies Directions Committee, series editor of IEEE Press/Wiley, and has served editor-in-chief of IEEE Press, chair of ComSoc Emerging Technologies and of SPCE Technical Committees, Area-editor of IEEE Communications Magazine/Optical Communications, member of IEEE PSPB, and VP of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society.