Novel Approximate Distribution of the Sum of Lognormal-Rician Turbulence Channels With Pointing Errors and Applications in MIMO FSO Links

Abstract

In this paper, an approximate closed-form probability density function expression for the sum of lognormal-Rician turbulence channels with Rayleigh pointing errors is developed. The results of Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness-of-fit statistical tests show that the proposed approximation is highly accurate across a wide range of channel conditions. Also, the analysis of approximation error is presented in detail, and it indicates that a more efficient approximation can be achieved for larger coherence parameter <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$r$</tex-math></inline-formula> and smaller variance <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma _{z}^{2}$</tex-math></inline-formula> . To reveal the importance of proposed approximation, the closed-form expressions for the ergodic capacity, outage probability, and bit-error rate are derived in terms of Meijer’s G-function. The performance of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) free-space optical (FSO) systems with equal gain combining (EGC) diversity technique are analyzed in detail under different scenarios, including the number of transmit and receive apertures, turbulence channels, and presence of pointing errors. It is observed that MIMO technology can offer a significant improvement in FSO performance when compared with the single-input single-output (SISO) systems. The ergodic capacity and BER performance at high signal-to-noise ratio are also obtained to provide further insights. Numerical results demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed approach.