BER estimation for multi-hop RoFSO QAM or PSK OFDM communication systems over gamma gamma or exponentially modeled turbulence channels

Abstract

Abstract The optical wireless and in particular the radio-on-free-space-optical (RoFSO) communication systems are gaining popularity due to their high date rates, license free spectrum and adequate reliability at installation and operational costs which are much lower than comparable technologies. One significant disadvantage of these systems concerns the randomly time varying characteristics of the propagation path mainly caused by the atmospheric turbulence. In this work, we study the BER performance of a multi-hop RoFSO system which is using an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) scheme, with either quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) or phase shift keying format (PSK), over atmospheric turbulence channels modeled with the gamma gamma or the negative exponential distribution. The individual RoFSO parts of the whole optical link are connected to each other by using regenerators relay nodes. The dominant impairments which are the most significant and have been taken into account are the atmospheric turbulence, the path losses, the nonlinear responsivity of the laser diode and the inter-modulation distortion effect. For this setup, we derive closed form mathematical expressions for the estimation of the BER performance for each individual OFDM RoFSO link and for the whole relayed optical communication system, as well. Finally, the corresponding numerical results, for common link׳s parameters, are presented.