IET Communications

Research Article

ISSN 1751-8628
Performance analysis of free space optical Received on 26th September 2014
Accepted on 5th January 2015
links using multi-input multi-output and doi: 10.1049/iet-com.2014.0926
www.ietdl.org
aperture averaging in presence of turbulence
and various weather conditions
Prabhmandeep Kaur ✉, Virander Kumar Jain, Subrat Kar
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi-16, India
✉ E-mail: eez128124@ee.iitd.ac.in

Abstract: The authors study the effect of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) spatial diversity schemes when used in a free
space optical (FSO) communication link in the presence of turbulence and varied weather conditions such as very clear
air, drizzle, haze, fog etc. The performance is evaluated in terms of the bit error rate (BER) and outage probability Pout.
We show that MIMO schemes cause a decrease in the BER and Pout which, at low signal-to-noise ratios, is more
significant in presence of very clear air and clear air as compared with haze and fog weather conditions. The diversity
gain at a BER of 10−6 is evaluated and observed to increase as the number of transmit/receive apertures increase.
However, it remains almost constant over all the weather conditions for a given MIMO scheme and turbulence
strength. The performance of FSO link with MIMO schemes is compared with a FSO link using aperture averaging.
Owing to constraint on the receiver aperture diameter, the aperture averaging technique fails to give the same kind of
performance as provided by the higher order MIMO schemes.

1 Introduction
Free space optics (FSO) communication has emerged as a fast
growing communication technology given its potential for high data
rates, its use of unregulated spectrum, secure communication and
lower costs. Typically, a laser beam modulated by the electrical
information bearing signal is used to transmit data through free
space or terrestrial atmosphere. Since the optical wave propagates
through the atmosphere, it is susceptible to optical turbulence
caused by the formation of eddies (regions varying in refractive
index). These result in random fluctuations in the beam intensity,
leading to increased bit error rates (BERs). The propagating signal
also experiences optical extinction caused by the various weather
conditions such as haze, fog etc. because of the phenomena of
absorption and scattering. To mitigate the effect of turbulence,
several schemes such as the error control codes, aperture averaging,
spatial diversity and adaptive optics have been proposed. The losses
caused by weather conditions can be overcome by increasing the
transmit power and using spatial diversity. However, increasing the
power is limited by eye safety regulations on the laser [1–3].
Spatial diversity implies the use of multiple transmit lasers/receive
apertures. It has been used extensively to reduce the effect of
atmospheric turbulence in FSO links since first being proposed in
[4]. The improvement in the outage probability using a log-normal
distribution (valid for weak turbulence regime) was investigated by
Lee and Chan [5]. They demonstrated that the power gain
achieved with equal gain combining (EGC) at the receiver end
was approximately the same as obtained by optimal combining
techniques. The BER performance of the multi-input multi-output
(MIMO) FSO system was evaluated using log-normal turbulence
model considering independent as well as correlated channels [6].
The effect of MIMO schemes on FSO links experiencing strong
turbulence has been evaluated using the negative exponential and
K-distributions [7, 8]. To model the wide range of turbulence from
weak to strong regimes, gamma–gamma distribution emerges as
the preferred choice given its compliance with the measured data
[9, 10]. In [11], the closed form expressions for the diversity gain
and combining gain for MIMO links were derived using the
gamma–gamma channel. The BER performance and outage
probability have also been calculated considering the effect of both
turbulence and misalignment [12–16]. Aperture averaging is
another form of spatial diversity wherein the system performance
is improved by averaging out the signal fluctuations over the
receiver aperture. The effect of aperture averaging on various
turbulence regimes has been investigated [17, 18]. However, in all
the above mentioned studies, the effect of weather conditions was
not considered.
In this paper, we evaluate the performance of a FSO link under the
influence of turbulence and various weather conditions such as very
clear air, clear air/drizzle, haze, fog etc. Atmospheric turbulence is
modelled as gamma–gamma distribution. The effect of weather
conditions is accounted for by using the Beer–Lambert’s Law. The
BER, outage probability and diversity gain are calculated for
various MIMO schemes. The performance is then compared with a
single-input single-output (SISO) link employing aperture averaging.
2 System and channel models
We consider an intensity modulated/direct detection MIMO FSO link
employing on-off keying (OOK). The signal is transmitted over M
transmit apertures using repetition coding. EGC is used at the
receiver to combine the signals from N point detectors, spatially
separated by a few centimetres so that they are statistically
independent. The output yn at the nth receive aperture is given by [19]


Mh mn
yn = Rx +nn (1)
m=1
where x ∈ {0, 2Pt} is the transmitted signal intensity with Pt being the
average transmitted optical power, R the detector responsivity (in A/
W), nn the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) with variance s2n
and hmn the channel state through the optical channel from the mth
transmit aperture to the nth receive aperture. hmn accounts for the
effect of both turbulence and weather conditions on the propagating
optical beam. It is given by hmn = hahl, where ha is the turbulence
fading coefficient modelled by the gamma–gamma distribution and

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hl, the path loss caused by weather conditions. The probability density random variables with pdf as given by (8). The sum of i.i.d.
function (pdf) of ha is given as gamma–gamma variables can be efficiently approximated as a
gamma–gamma distribution [23] with parameters αS and βS,
2(a1 b1 )(a1 +b1 /2) (a1 +b1 /2)−1   given by
fha (ha ) = ha Ka1 −b1 2 a1 b1 ha (2)
G(a1 )G(b1 )
a S = S a 1 + eS and bS = S b1 (11)
where α1 and β1 are parameters related to the effective number of large
and small scale turbulent eddies, respectively, and Ka1 −b1 (.) the
modified Bessel function of the second kind. The propagating where S = MN. The error term ɛS is approximated as
signal is modelled as a spherical wave considering a small aperture
source [20]. Thus the values of α1 and β1 for a point receiver are −0.127 − 0.95a1 − 0.0058b1
given by eS = (S − 1) (12)
1 + 0.00124a1 + 0.98b1
 
−1
0.49b2o
a1 = exp − 1 (3) The pdf of combined channel gain h is
(1 + 0.56b12/5
o )7/6
 
2AS h(aS +bS /2)−1
and
B h
fh (h) = KaS −bS 2 S (13)
 
−1 (MN)(aS +bS /2) MN
0.51b2o
b1 = exp − 1 (4)
(1 + 0.69b12/5
o )5/6
where
where b2o = 0.5Cn2 k 7/6 z11/6 is the spherical wave Rytov variance, Cn2
the refractive index structure parameter and k = 2π/l the optical wave
(a +b /2)
number. AS = (aS bS )(aS +bS /2) /G(aS )G(bS )hl S S
The value of hl is calculated by the Beer-Lambert’s Law as [21]
and BS = αSβS/hl. Expressing the Bessel function as a Meijer-G
hl = e−dz (5)
function [24, Sec. 8.4.23], we obtain
where z is the link length and δ the attenuation coefficient,
  
determined by the Kim’s model [3]. The attenuation coefficient δ
AS h(aS +bS /2)−1 2,0 BS h −
is dependent on the link visibility V (distance where the image fh (h) = G0,2 aS − bS bS − aS (14)
contrast drops to 2% of what it would be if the object were nearby (MN )(aS +bS /2) MN  ,
2 2
in presence of different weather conditions), the operating
wavelength l and the particle size distribution q as
where

−q
3.91 l
d= (6) 

V 550
Using the above equation, the attenuation coefficients (in dB/km) for
weather conditions of very clear air (V = 50 km, q = 1.6), clear air/
drizzle (V = 20 km, q = 1.3), haze (V = 6 km, q = 1.3), thin fog (V =
2 km, q = 0.66) and moderate fog (V = 0.6 km, q = 0.1) are 0.0647,
0.2208, 0.7360, 4.2850 and 25.5160, respectively, at l = 1550 nm.
Since the value of hl is deterministic, pdf of the channel gain,
fhmn (hmn ) is given by [22]
 a1 , . . . , ap
Gm,n x
p,q  b1 , . . . , bq
is the Meijer-G function notation.
The pdf of the combined channel gain for different MIMO
schemes under very clear air weather conditions is plotted in
Fig. 1. The validity of this distribution had been verified by using
Kolmogorov–Smirnov goodness-of-fit tests statistically [25]. It is
seen that as the number of transmit/receive apertures increase, the

 d hmn  hmn distribution spreads out with an increase in the value of the
fhmn (hmn ) =  f (7)
dhmn hl  ha hl
channel gain.

It can be simplified and written as

 
(a +b /2)−1
fhmn (hmn ) = 2A1 hmn1 1 Ka1 −b1 2 B1 hmn (8)

where

(a +b /2)
A1 = (a1 b1 )(a1 +b1 /2) /G(a1 )G(b1 )hl 1 1 and
B1 = a1 b1 /hl (9)

Using EGC at the receiver end, the output y can be written as

1
N
Rx
N
M
y= yn = h +n (10)
MN n=1 MN n=1 m=1 mn
  Fig. 1 Combined channel state pdf for different MIMO schemes in very
The combined channel gain h = Nn=1 M m=1 hmn , is a sum of MN, clear air condition and moderate turbulence regime
independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) gamma–gamma ( Cn2 = 1.7 × 10−14 m−2/3 )

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 For an aperture averaged SISO link, the pdf of the channel gain is 3.1 BER analysis
given by (8), with modified parameters given as follows
BER is an important parameter to analyse the performance of a link.
It is computed by averaging the conditional error probability for
 
−1 OOK signalling scheme, Pe(h) given by
0.49b2o
a1 = exp − 1 (15)
(1 + 0.18d 2 + 0.56b12/5
o )7/6 

1 m
erfc
2 2
 
−1
0.51b2o (1 + 0.69b12/5 )−5/6 over the pdf of the random signal fh(h), given by (13). The erfc(.) is
b1 = exp o
− 1 (16)
(1 + 0.90d 2 + 0.62d 2 b12/5
o ) expressed as a Meijer-G function [24, Sec. 8.4.14] to obtain

1   
 2 1
where d = kD2 /4z with D being the receiver aperture diameter [20]. 1 2,0 gh 
BER = √ G  1 fh (h)dh (17)
0 2 p 1,2 2  0,
2

Integrating using [27, Eq. (21)], we obtain

3 Performance analysis ⎛  ⎞
 1 − aS a 1 − bS b
 ,1− S, ,1− S,1
Next, we evaluate the performance of FSO MIMO links in terms of 2,4 ⎜  ⎟
BER = Ao G5,2 ⎝Bo  2 2 2 2 ⎠ (18)
BER and Pout. The instantaneous received electrical signal-to-noise  1
 0,
ratio (SNR), μ is a function of the random variable h. For OOK 2
signalling, μ is given by γh 2, where g = Pt2 R2 /(M 2 N 2 s2n ) is the
average electrical SNR [26]. where Ao = 2aS +bS /(8p(3/2) G(aS )G(bS )) and Bo = 8γ(hlMN)2/(αSβS)2.

Fig. 2 BER against average SNR for various M × N MIMO schemes in presence of moderate turbulence ( Cn2 = 1.7 × 10−14 m−2/3 ) and various weather
conditions
a Very clear air
b Clear air/drizzle
c Haze
d Thin fog

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The values of αS and βS corresponding to M × N MIMO link are taken where
from (11). For an aperture averaged link the values of αS and βS in (17)
correspond to the values of α1 and β1, given by (15) and (16), 
Co = (aS bS )(aS +bS /2) / 2G(aS )G(bS )(h1 MN)(aS +bS /2) g(aS +bS /n) )
respectively.
Integrating fμ(μ) using [24, Section 2.24.2: Eq. (2)], the cdf Fμ(γth) is
obtained as
3.2 Outage probability


1 2,1 aS bS gth  1
The Pout is the probability that the instantaneous SNR falls below a Fm (gth ) = G1,3  (21)
threshold value γth. The performance of channel is considered to be G(aS )G(bS ) hl MN g aS , bS , 0
satisfactory above this threshold value specified by the receiver’s
sensitivity [28]. Pout is a critical parameter in the design of data The normalised outage threshold is given by γth/(γM 2N 2) and the
networks and is given by values of αS and βS are as in Section 3.1.

Pout = Pr(m , gth ) = Fm (gth ) (19) 4 Results and discussion

where Fμ(γth) represents the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of We evaluate the performance of a terrestrial FSO link with a link
the instantaneous SNR. The pdf of μ is given by length z of 3.5 km, operating at a wavelength l of 1550 nm with
MIMO and aperture averaging under the influence of turbulence
  −
 and various weather conditions. In our work we have considered
( aS +bS /4)−1 2,0 aS bS m moderate turbulence regime that is modelled as a gamma–gamma
fm (m) = Co m G0,2  aS − bS bS − aS
hl MN g  , distribution fha (ha ), given by (8). For moderate turbulence, the
2 2 value of Cn2 is taken as 1.7 × 10−14 m−2/3 and it also represents a
(20) typical value of turbulence strength during daytime near the

Fig. 3 Outage probability against normalised outage threshold for various M × N MIMO schemes in presence of moderate turbulence
( Cn2 = 1.7 × 10−14 m−2/3 ) and various weather conditions
a Very clear air
b Clear air/drizzle
c Haze
d Thin fog

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Table 1 Diversity gain (dB) at a BER of 10−6 for various weather
conditions and moderate turbulence (Cn2 = 1.7 × 10−14 m−2/3 )
Weather condition MIMO scheme (M × N)
1×2 1×3 2×2 2×3 3×3
very clear air 23.81 32.13 36.55 41.30 44.65
clear air/drizzle 23.71 32.22 36.68 41.26 44.64
haze 23.73 32.24 36.58 41.21 44.62
thin fog 23.75 32.17 36.49 41.23 44.53
ground level [2, 3, 29]. Similar values have been taken by other
researchers for moderate turbulence [28, 30]. The effect of
weather is accounted by the value of hl from (5). A strong
inverse correlation exists between the turbulence strength and
attenuation caused by weather conditions, that is, in low
turbulence, fog conditions can exist whereas foggy weather and
strong turbulence are unlikely to occur simultaneously [22, 31].
Since in our work, lower (moderate) turbulence regime has been
modelled, thin fog conditions can be present simultaneously as in
[32, 33]. For the channel gains to be statistically independent in
MIMO spatial diversity techniques, the receivers are separated√by
a distance greater than the correlation length given by lz
(≃ 7.3 cm for the considered link parameters). Fig. 2 shows the
variation of BER against SNR for various MIMO schemes under
the influence of turbulence and various weather conditions such
as very clear air, clear air/drizzle, haze and thin fog. It is seen
that as the number of transmit/receive apertures are increased,
BER improves (decreases) irrespective of the weather condition.
However, at lower values of SNR, the improvement in BER is
more pronounced for very clear air, clear air/drizzle and haze
condition as compared with thin fog. Since fog conditions cause
the maximum extinction of the optical beam, it can be seen that
to obtain a specific BER, highest SNR among all the weather
conditions is required. Similar trends are observed for the
variation of outage probability with the normalised outage
threshold for various MIMO schemes in Fig. 3 when turbulence
and weather conditions such as very clear air, clear air/drizzle,
haze and thin fog are simultaneously present.
Diversity gain is another performance parameter of a spatial
diversity system employing MIMO schemes. It is defined as the
decrease in the SNR (in dB) when a diversity scheme is employed
without causing any performance loss. The diversity gain for
MIMO diversity schemes is tabulated in Table 1 for various
weather conditions under moderate turbulence. It is seen that as
Fig. 4 Variations in BER and the outage probability
a BER
b Outage probability against receiver aperture diameter in presence of moderate turbulence (Cn2 = 1.7 × 10−14 m−2/3 ) and various weather conditions
1108
Table 2 Receiver aperture diameter for various MIMO schemes at SNR
of 35 dB
MIMO schemes Receiver aperture diameter (in cm)
(M × N )
Very clear air Clear air/drizzle Haze Thin fog
1×2 7.68 7.61 7.35 6.68
1×3 13.19 13.07 12.74 11.51
2×2 16.98 16.89 16.54 14.95
2×3 x x x x
3×3 x x x x
x: Diameter > 20 cm
the number of transmit/receive apertures increases, the diversity
gain increases. However, for a fixed diversity scheme, the diversity
gain remains almost constant, irrespective of the weather
condition. This is because the loss caused by the weather
conditions is independent of the number of transmit/receive
apertures and cancels out in the computation of diversity gain.
Thus, even though the SNR requirement for obtaining the same
performance for a given diversity scheme may be worst for fog
followed by haze, clear air/drizzle and the least being in very clear
air, the diversity gain remains nearly constant.
Further, the effect of aperture averaging on BER and outage
probability is studied in the presence of turbulence and different
weather conditions. The variations in BER (at a SNR of 35 dB)
and the outage probability (at a normalised outage threshold of
20 dB) are plotted with the receiver aperture diameter in Fig. 4.
Both the BER and outage probability decrease with the
increasing aperture diameter. The aperture size cannot be
increased indefinitely as it is physically limited by the increase
in the background noise [20]. We have considered diameters
upto 20 cm since commercially available receivers have aperture
diameters in the range of 5–20 cm [34]. In addition, a
comparison of the performance of aperture averaging and MIMO
schemes is made in terms of BER and outage probability. The
receiver aperture diameters that give same performance as given
by a M × N MIMO scheme at a SNR of 35 dB and a normalised
outage threshold of 20 dB under various weather conditions and
moderate turbulence are tabulated in Tables 2 and 3,
respectively. It is seen that as the number of transmit/receive
apertures are increased, it is possible to obtain performance that
may not be possible with aperture averaging because of the
constraint on the aperture size.
IET Commun., 2015, Vol. 9, Iss. 8, pp. 1104–1109
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