Diversity gain analysis of free-space optical communication systems

In this paper, we present a diversity gain analysis for free-space optical (FSO) diversity systems operating in log-normal atmospheric turbulence channels. We consider a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system and two decode-and-forward (DF) relay-assisted systems based on either serial (i.e., multi-hop transmission) or parallel (i.e., cooperative diversity) configurations. We adopt the recently introduced so-called ldquoasymptotical relative diversity orderrdquo (ARDO) in our analysis and derive ARDOs for FSO diversity systems under consideration. Assuming M transmit and N receive apertures in MIMO scheme, we demonstrate that an ARDO of 4sigma_chi ² / ln(1 + (exp(4sigma_chi ²)-1)/MN) is achievable where sigma_chi ² is the variance of the fading log-amplitude. For weak turbulence conditions (i.e., sigma_chi ~ 0.1 ), ARDO is well approximated as MN. For DF relaying schemes with K relays each of which is equipped with single transmit/receive apertures, we demonstrate that ARDOs of (K +1)^11/6 and 2^11/6 K are achievable, respectively, for serial and parallel relaying configurations.