On the block error rate of FSO links with diversity over mixture gamma turbulence channels

Abstract

Recently, wireless communications started incorporating FSO systems to a large extent due to their high bandwidth and the low installation and operational cost. However, their performance deteriorates significantly due to the atmosperic conditions. A very significant issue is the atmospheric turbulence which causes the scintillation effect and results in fast power fluctuations at the receiver which can be modelled through the appropriate stochastic models. In this work, for first time to the best of our knowledge, the average block error rate (BLER) performance of a terrestrial FSO communication link with receivers’ diversity is estimated and new mathematical expressions are derived, for weak to strong turbulence channels with the Mixture-Gamma distribution which emulate accurately the most of the well-known turbulence models. The derived expressions are significant, especially for high data rates FSO communication systems and networks, because by estimating accurately the BLER performance, the appropriate coding scheme, for links designing, can be selected.

KEYWORDS:

• Block error rate
• free space optical communication systems
• SIMO links
• receivers’ diversity
• atmospheric turbulence
• mixture gamma model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

HEN acknowledge that this work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No: 871900. NAA acknowledges that this research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund- ESF) through the Operational Program “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning” in the context of the project “Strengthening Human Resources Research Potential via Doctorate Research” (MIS-5000432), implemented by the State Scholarships Foundation (ΙΚΥ).