OFDM Wireless Optical Communication Systems with Serial Relays Over Exponentially Modeled Turbulence Channels

The optical wireless communication systems attract very significant research and commercial interest, the last years, due to their high availability, and performance characteristics with relatively low installation and operational cost. On the other hand, due to the fact that the optical channel which is used in this technology is the atmosphere, their performance depends strongly on the atmospheric conditions and the link’s characteristics. Thus, the effective distance that these systems can cover is relatively short. Thus, in many cases where the long distance signal propagation using wireless optical systems, is necessary, relay nodes are used. In this work, we study the performance of a wireless optical system, which is using the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technique and relay nodes which decode and retransmit the received signal, over atmospheric turbulence channels modeled with the negative exponential distribution. For this system, we derive closed form mathematical expressions for its outage probability and average bit error rate (BER). Finally, we present the corresponding numerical results for realistic cases with common parameter values

BER analysis of amplify-and-forward relaying FSO systems using APD receiver over strong atmospheric turbulence channels

In this paper, we theoretically analyze the performance of amplify-and-forward (AF) serial relaying free-space optical (FSO) systems using avalanche photodiodes (APD) and subcarrier quadrature amplitude modulation (SC-QAM) over strong atmospheric turbulence channels modelled by gamma-gamma distribution. Closed-form expression for average bit error rate (BER) of system is theoretically derived talking into account APD shot noise, thermal noise as well as the impact of atmospheric loss and turbulence. The numerical results show that using AF relay stations can extend the transmission distance and help to improve performance of FSO system significantly when compared with the direct transmission. Moreover, the selection of APD gain value is indispensable to the system performance. The proposed system could be achieved the best performance by selecting an optimal APD gain value. In addition, the optimal value of APD gain also significantly depends on various conditions, such as link distance, the number of relay stations and APD receiver noise

Investigation on iterative multiuser detection physical layer network coding in two-way relay free-space optical links with turbulences and pointing errors

Physical layer network coding (PNC) improves the throughput in wireless networks by enabling two nodes to exchange information using a minimum number of time slots. The PNC technique is proposed for two-way relay channel free space optical (TWR-FSO) communications with the aim of maximizing the utilization of network resources. The multipair TWR-FSO is considered in this paper, where a single antenna on each pair seeks to communicate via a common receiver aperture at the relay. Therefore, chip interleaving is adopted as a technique to separate the different transmitted signals at the relay node to perform PNC mapping. Accordingly, this scheme relies on the iterative multiuser technique for detection of users at the receiver. The bit error rate (BER) performance of the proposed system is examined under the combined influences of atmospheric loss, turbulence-induced channel fading, and pointing errors (PEs). By adopting the joint PNC mapping with interleaving and multiuser detection techniques, the BER results show that the proposed scheme can achieve a significant performance improvement against the degrading effects of turbulences and PEs. It is also demonstrated that a larger number of simultaneous users can be supported with this new scheme in establishing a communication link between multiple pairs of nodes in two time slots, thereby improving the channel capacity

BER Estimation of Dual Hop QAM OFDM ROFSO over Exponentially Modeled Turbulence and Optical Fiber with Nonlinear Clipping

The radio on free space optical (RoFSO) communication systems are gaining popularity due to their high data rates, license free spectrum and adequate reliability at installation and operational costs which are much lower than comparable technologies. A significant disadvantage of these systems concerns the randomly time varying characteristics of the propagation path mainly caused by the turbulence effect. On the other hand, the optical fiber communication systems offer links with higher data rates but with expensive infrastructure and installation cost. In this work, we study the BER performance of an optical communication system which consists of a RoFSO link that is connected with an optical fiber link through a regenerator node. The signal propagates, in both links, using the OFDM technique with QAM format and the dominant impairments which have been taken into account are the atmospheric turbulence, modelled with the negative exponential distribution, the nonlinear responsivity of the laser diode which can be modelled with a Volterra series and the biasing with nonlinear clipping noise. For this setup, closed form mathematical expression for the estimation of system's BER has been derived and the corresponding numerical results are presented for common link parameters

Mitigation techniques through spatial diversity combining and relay-assisted technology in a turbulence impaired and misaligned free space optical channel.

Doctor of Philosophy in Electronic Engineering. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2018.In recent times, spectrum resource scarcity in Radio Frequency (RF) systems is one of the biggest and prime issues in the area of wireless communications. Owing to the cost of spectrum, increase in the bandwidth allocation as alternative solution, employed in the recent past, does no longer offer an effective means to fulfilling high demand in higher data rates. Consequently, Free Space Optical (FSO) communication systems has received considerable attention in the research community as an attractive means among other popular solutions to offering high bandwidth and high capacity compared to conventional RF systems. In addition, FSO systems have positive features which include license-free operation, cheap and ease of deployment, immunity to interference, high security, etc. Thus, FSO systems have been favoured in many areas especially, as a viable solution for the last-mile connectivity problem and a potential candidate for heterogeneous wireless backhaul network. With these attractive features, however, FSO systems are weather-dependent wireless channels. Therefore, it is usually susceptible to atmospheric induced turbulence, pointing error and attenuation under adverse weather conditions which impose severe challenges on the system performance and transmission reliability. Thus, before widespread deployment of the system will be possible, promising mitigation techniques need to be found to address these problems. In this thesis, the performance of spatial diversity combining and relay-assisted techniques with Spatial Modulation (SM) as viable mitigating tools to overcome the problem of atmospheric channel impairments along the FSO communication system link is studied. Firstly, the performance analysis of a heterodyne FSO-SM system with different diversity combiners such as Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC), Equal Gain Combining (EGC) and Selection Combining (SC) under the influence of lognormal and Gamma-Gamma atmospheric-induced turbulence fading is presented. A theoretical framework for the system error is provided by deriving the Average Pairwise Error Probability (APEP) expression for each diversity scheme under study and union bounding technique is applied to obtain their Average Bit Error Rate (ABER). Under the influence of Gamma-Gamma turbulence, an APEP expression is obtained through a generalized infinite power series expansion approach and the system performance is further enhanced by convolutional coding technique. Furthermore, the performance of proposed system under the combined effect of misalignment and Gamma-Gamma turbulence fading is also studied using the same mathematical approach. Moreover, the performance analysis of relay-assisted dual-hop heterodyne FSO-SM system with diversity combiners over a Gamma-Gamma atmospheric turbulence channel using Decode-and-Forward (DF) relay and Amplify-and-Forward (AF) relay protocols also is presented. Under DF dual-hop FSO system, power series expansion of the modified Bessel function is used to derive the closed-form expression for the end-to-end APEP expressions for each of the combiners under study over Gamma-Gamma channel, and a tight upper bound on the ABER per hop is given. Thus, the overall end-to-end ABER for the dual-hop FSO system is then evaluated. Under AF dual-hop FSO system, the statistical characteristics of AF relay in terms of Moment Generating Function (MGF), Probability Density Function (PDF) and Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) are derived for the combined Gamma-Gamma turbulence and/or pointing error distributions channel in terms of Meijer-G function. Based on these expressions, the APEP for each of the under studied combiners is determined and the ABER for the system is given by using union bounding technique. By utilizing the derived ABER expressions, the effective capacity for the considered system is then obtained. Furthermore, the performance of a dual-hop heterodyne FSO-SM asymmetric RF/FSO relaying system with MRC as mitigation tools at the destination is evaluated. The RF link experiences Nakagami-m distribution and FSO link is subjected to Gamma-Gamma distribution with and/or without pointing error. The MGF of the system equivalent SNR is derived using the CDF of the system equivalent SNR. Utilizing the MGF, the APEP for the system is then obtained and the ABER for the system is determined. Finally, owing to the slow nature of the FSO channel, the Block Error Rate (BLER) performance of FSO Subcarrier Intensity Modulation (SIM) system with spatial diversity combiners employing Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulation over Gamma-Gamma atmospheric turbulence with and without pointing error is studied. The channel PDF for MRC and EGC by using power series expansion of the modified Bessel function is derived. Through this, the BLER closed-form expressions for the combiners under study are obtained

K Modeled Turbulence and Nonlinear Clipping for QAM OFDM with FSO and Fiber Serial Linked

The free space optical (FSO) and more specifically the radio on free space optical (RoFSO) communication systems are becoming very popular because they can achieve high bit rate transmission with low operational and installation cost. The main disadvantage of such systems is their dependence on the atmospheric conditions and more specifically the randomly time varying characteristics of the propagation path through the atmosphere which is, mainly, caused by the turbulence effect and affects significantly the system's availability and performance. On the other hand, the use of optical fiber systems, offer higher bit-rates and security level but their cost is larger. In this work, the performance of a hybrid dual hop optical communication system is investigated. This system consists of a RoFSO communication link which is connected with an optical fiber link part using a regenerator between them. In both links, the modulation technique that is used is the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with either a 4 or 16 QAM format. The main phenomena that are taken into account are the atmospheric turbulence, which is modelled with K distribution, the nonlinearities of the laser diode which could be modelled by Volterra series and the biasing with the nonlinear clipping at the optical fiber segment. For this system, closed form mathematical expression for the estimation of its BER is derived and numerical results are presented for realistic parameter values