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ACM Netw."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,24]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Long-range, high-capacity free-space optical communications (FSOC) is critical for terrestrial rural wireless x-haul and rural broadband in general. Existing terrestrial FSOC systems are however designed primarily for short-range communications. Long-range FSOC faces major challenges such as scintillation, weather, telescope misalignment, and sun noise, and there is a lack of FSOC systems and testbeds for investigating the feasibility and behavior of long-range, high-capacity terrestrial FSOC in realistic rural settings. To fill the gap, we design and implement AraOptical, a first-of-its-kind 10+ km FSOC x-haul system. We permanently deploy the AraOptical system and make it publicly available as the rural ARA testbed for empowering researchers worldwide to investigate long-range FSOC and wireless x-haul solutions. The AraOptical system features innovative designs for addressing key challenges of long-range FSOC. It effectively uses optimized COTS components such as feedback-controlled-low-noise-amplifiers and transceivers compatible with conventional routers, and it invents a novel multi-level auto-alignment algorithm tailored for the AraOptical system. The software framework of the AraOptical system features custom-designed APIs and facilitates the establishment of the ARA wireless living lab for real-world experimentation. Using the field-deployed ARA, we demonstrate, for the first time, the real-world feasibility of long-range terrestrial FSOC. AraOptical achieves a maximum throughput of 2.92 Gbps on a single channel, and, with 16 parallel channels, AraOptical is well-poised to scale to an aggregate capacity of 160 Gbps using 10G SFP+ transceivers, with potential for multi-Tbps capacity using 100G\/400G coherent transceivers. We also quantitatively characterize the impact of scintillation and weather on long-range terrestrial FSOC, and we will publicly share the first-of-its-kind measurement data. The unique lessons learned from this pioneering real-world deployment of long-range FSOC systems will also facilitate future real-world studies and adoption.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3768986","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,25]],"date-time":"2025-11-25T17:09:56Z","timestamp":1764090596000},"page":"1-21","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["AraOptical System and Testbed for Long-Range, High-Capacity FSOC in Rural Wireless X-Haul Networks"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"3","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0006-6453-2403","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Md","family":"Nadim","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Iowa State University, Ames, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-0755-6073","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xun","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-9314-3100","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Salil","family":"Reddy","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9219-2588","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sarath","family":"Babu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Iowa State University, Ames, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5467-7901","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Arsalan","family":"Ahmad","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Iowa State University, Ames, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4005-1107","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ozdal","family":"Boyraz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3662-6481","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Daji","family":"Qiao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Iowa State University, Ames, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2152-0462","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Anish","family":"Arora","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1970-0085","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hongwei","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Iowa State University, Ames, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,25]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","unstructured":"2017. 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