Performance of a free-space optical communication system employing receive diversity techniques in anisotropic atmospheric non-Kolmogorov turbulence

In this paper, bit error rate ( BER ) performance of a free-space optical communication (FSOC) system operating in anisotropic non-Kolmogorov weak turbulence is investigated together with the spatial diversity techniques. The spatial diversity techniques are implemented as maximum ratio combining (MRC), equal gain combining (EGC), and selection combining (SC) and applied to the receiver. The propagating beam is the Gaussian beam wave, and the modulation scheme is binary phase-shift keying (BPSK). Results are obtained for various parameters such as the anisotropy factor, non-Kolmogorov power law exponent, photodetector responsivity, equivalent load resistor, electronic bandwidth, Gaussian beam radius, wavelength, propagation distance, and turbulence structure constant. It is found that the spatial diversity technique used at the receiver causes significant improvement in the performance of an FSOC system under the conditions of anisotropic non-Kolmogorov atmospheric turbulence. It is also observed that BER performance improves as the atmospheric turbulence becomes more anisotropic. Among the spatial diversity techniques, SC is inferior to EGC and EGC is inferior to MRC in terms of BER performance.