Performance Comparison of Free-Space Optical (FSO) Communication Link Under OOK, BPSK, DPSK, QPSK and 8-PSK Modulation Formats in the Presence of Strong Atmospheric Turbulence

Abstract

Abstract Free-space optical (FSO) communication system provides several advantages over radio frequency (RF) system offering high bandwidth, low cost, small space requirements and more secure transmission which is free from Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). However, when the transmitted light signal passes through the atmosphere it experiences attenuation and fluctuations due to atmospheric turbulence. This paper analyzes the bit error rate (BER) performance of FSO communication systems under strong atmospheric turbulence for on-off keying (OOK), binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), differential phase shift keying (DPSK), quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) and 8-phase shift keying (8-PSK) for link distances of 500, 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 m. The probability density function (pdf) of the received irradiance is modelled using the gamma-gamma distribution model. It is found that the system exhibits the best BER performance and compensates the lowest power penalty at BER of 10 - 9 for BPSK modulation compared with other modulation techniques which makes BPSK more appropriate to be used with FSO turbulent system.