Performance Bounds of AF Relay-Assisted FSO Systems Over Gamma-Gamma Channels and Pointing Errors

Abstract

This paper presents performance bounds of amplify-and-forward (AF) relay-assisted free-space optical (FSO) communication systems employing subcarrier quadrature amplitude modulation (SC-QAM) signal over gammagamma distributed atmospheric turbulence channels and pointing errors. An analytical expression is derived to evaluate the average symbol error rate (ASER) performance of the system. ASER is derived taking into account the atmospheric turbulence effects on the FSO channel, number of relay stations and jitter variable, beam-width, aperture size and upper approximations of the Gaussian Q-function.