Performance analysis of NLOS ultraviolet communications with correlated branches over turbulent channels

Abstract

Ultraviolet communication (UVC) is becoming increasingly popular due to its ability to effectively communicate in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) mode, which offers alternative communication system advantages over visible light communication and infrared links. However, the performance of UVC is affected by atmospheric turbulence, which is generally ignored under the assumption of short-distance links. In this paper, we consider a NLOS UVC system experiencing turbulence due to variation in the refractive index of the atmosphere. The atmospheric turbulence results in fading due to fluctuations in the received signal strength, thus deteriorating the quality of communication. Spatial diversity is proven to mitigate the effect of fading by introducing multiple parallel communication paths between the transmitter and receiver. We present a spatial diversity reception in the form of {N_r}-branches selection combining at the receiver. The channel coefficients are assumed to be exponentially correlated, and turbulence is modeled using log-normal distribution under weak turbulence conditions. Closed-form expressions for the outage probability and average symbol error rate for general order rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation (RQAM), cross-QAM, and hexagonal QAM schemes are derived. Furthermore, the ergodic capacity of the system is computed as a function of the channel correlation coefficient. The numerical values are compared with computer simulations to validate the accuracy of the theoretical analysis. © 2009-2012 OSA.