22 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 16, NO.

1, JANUARY 2012

Comments on ‘BER Performance of FSO Links over

Strong Atmospheric Turbulence Channels with Pointing Errors’
Jun-Bo Wang, Member, IEEE, Ming Sheng, Xiaoyu Song, Senior Member, IEEE, Yuan Jiao,
and Ming Chen, Member, IEEE

Abstract—This note aims to report and correct a mistake in

the mentioned paper [1] by Harilaos G. Sandalidis, et al. An
error occurs in the derivation of the average BER of free-space
optical links over strong atmospheric turbulence channels with
pointing errors. The corrected derivation is substantiated by the
numeric simulation results.
Index Terms—Bit-error rate (BER), free-space optical (FSO)
communications, K atmospheric turbulence channel, misalign-
ment fading, pointing error.
The authors of [1] use the error probability conditioned
on composite channel state ℎ to derive the average BER of
free-space optical links over strong atmospheric turbulence
channels. However, due to an error in the error probability
conditioned on ℎ, i.e. Equ. (9) in [1], the derived average
BER expression Equ. (12) in [1] is wrong. In order to correct
the errors, the detailed derivation process is given as follows.
According to the system model given by [1], the received
electrical signal is given by Fig. 1. BER versus transmitted power for several values of normalized beam
width.
𝑦 = ℎ𝑥 + 𝑛, 𝑥 ∈ {0, 2𝑃t } (1)

where 𝑥 is the transmitted signal, which is either 0 or 2𝑃t , probability density function (PDF) of ℎ defined as Equ. (8) in
and 𝑃t is the average transmitted optical power, 𝑛 is additive [1],
2
∫ ∞
white Gaussian noise with variance 𝜎N .
Pb (e) = 𝑓ℎ (ℎ) Pb (e ∣ℎ ) dℎ
Apparently, a Euclidean distance of the transmitted signal 0 [  ]
is 2𝑃t . Hence, the error probability conditioned on ℎ can be 2𝛼−3 𝛾 2 2,5 8𝑃t2 𝐴20  2−𝛾
2
1−𝛼 2−𝛼 1
, , , 0, , 1
presented as =√ 𝐺6,3 2 𝛼2 
2 2 22 2
𝜋 3 Γ (𝛼) 𝜎N 0, 12 , −𝛾
2
Pb (e ∣ℎ ) = Pr (𝑦 > 𝑃t ℎ) (3)
∫∞ 2
− 𝑦2 √
1
= 𝑃t ℎ √2𝜋𝜎 𝑒 2𝜎N d𝑦 (2) It should be noted that an unnecessary factor 2 exists in
( ) N 𝑄 function of Equ. (9) in [1], which results in the wrong
= 𝑄 𝑃𝜎tNℎ
average BER expression Equ. (12) in [1]. Here, the corrected
∫∞ expression Equ. (3) can be verified by computer simulations.
where 𝑄 (𝑥) = √12𝜋 𝑥 𝑒−𝑡 /2 d𝑡.
2
According to [1], main simulation parameters can be set as
Therefore, a closed-form expression for average BER, 𝛼 = 2, 𝜎N = 10−7 A/Hz, 𝑟 = 0.1 m, 𝜎s = 0.01 m.
Pb (e), can be obtained by averaging Equ. (2) over the It should be noted that 𝐴0 and 𝛾 are related to 𝑤𝑧 /𝑟 (see
[1] for more details). Figure 1 shows the average BER in
Manuscript received October 1, 2011. The associate editor coordinating the terms of the transmitted optical power for various values of
review of this letter and approving it for publication was Y. Chen.
J.-B. Wang is with the School of Software, Tsinghua University, Beijing the normalized beam width. It can be seen from Figure 1
100084, China, State Key Laboratory of Integrated Services Networks, that simulation results match with analytical results very well,
Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China, and is also with the College of which indicates that our derived average BER expression is
Electronic and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics
and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China (e-mail: jbwang@nuaa.edu.cn). correct for the free-space optical links over strong atmospheric
M. Sheng and Y. Jiao are with the College of Electronic and Information turbulence channels.
Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing
210016, China.
X. Song is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Portland State University, P. O. Box. 751 Portland, USA. This paper is supported by National Nature Science
M. Chen is with the National Mobile Communications Research Labora-
tory, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. Foundation of China (No. 61102068 and No. 60972023),
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LCOMM.2011.111011.112008 China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (No.
1089-7798/12$31.00 ⃝
c 2012 IEEE

Authorized licensed use limited to: AMITY University. Downloaded on July 20,2020 at 20:48:25 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
WANG et al.: COMMENTS ON ‘BER PERFORMANCE OF FSO LINKS OVER STRONG ATMOSPHERIC TURBULENCE CHANNELS WITH POINTING ERRORS’ 23

20110490389), the open research fund of the State Key R EFERENCES

Laboratory of Integrated Services Networks, Xidian University [1] H. G. Sandalidis, T. A. Tsiftsis, G. K. Karagiannidis, et al., “BER
(ISN12-11), the open research fund of National Mobile Com- performance of FSO links over strong atmospheric turbulence channels
munications Research Laboratory, Southeast University (No. with pointing errors,” IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 44–46,
Jan. 2008.
2010D01), National Science and Technology Important Spe-
cial Project (2010ZX03003-002 and 2010ZX03003-004), and
Research Fund of National Mobile Communications Research
Laboratory, Southeast University (No. 2011A06).

Authorized licensed use limited to: AMITY University. Downloaded on July 20,2020 at 20:48:25 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.