This paper studies the performance of hybrid radio-frequency (RF) and
free-space optical (FSO) links in the cases with and without hybrid automatic
repeat request (HARQ). Considering millimeter wave (mmwave) characteristics in
the RF link and pointing errors in the FSO link, we derive closed-form
expressions for the message decoding probabilities as well as the throughput
and the outage probability of the RF-FSO setups. We also evaluate the effect of
various parameters such as power amplifiers efficiency, different transmission
techniques in the FSO link, pointing errors in the FSO link as well as
different coherence times/symbol rates of the RF and the FSO links on the
throughput and outage probability. The results show the efficiency of the
RF-FSO links in different conditions. Moreover, the HARQ can effectively
improve the outage probability/energy efficiency, and compensate the effect of
hardware impairments in RF-FSO links.Comment: Under review in PIMRC'201
