BER and outage probability performance of log-normal distribution non-Kolmogorov turbulent optical links

Abstract

We model the average bit-error rate (BER) and outage probability for an intensity-modulation/direct detection of tracked or untracked optical wireless communication (OWC) systems with on-off keying in weak turbulence horizontal channels, using the log-normal distribution models. The effects of atmospheric attenuation, beam wander and spread, misalignment and the spectral index of non-Kolmogorov turbulence on system's performance are included. The model can be evaluated the information loss and BER of ground-to-train OWC links.