Free-space optics (FSO) communication has received much attention in recent years as a cost-effective, license-free, and wide-bandwidth access technique for high data rate applications. The performance of FSO communication, however, severely suffers from turbulence caused by atmospheric conditions. Multiple photodetectors can be placed at the receiver to mitigate the turbulence and exploit the advantages of spatial diversity combining. In this paper, we analyze the bit error rate (BER) performance of an FSO communication system employing binary phase-shift keying with additive non-Gaussian noise over negative exponential distributed atmospheric turbulence and spatial diversity at the receiver. The Laplace distribution is used to model the nonGaussian impulsive noise. We consider the case when perfect channel state information is available at the receiver for implementation of coherent detection. Analytical expressions for the BER of a single channel receiver as well as that of a diversity combining receiver using selection combining, dual-diversity equal-gain combining, and maximal-ratio combining are derived. The derived analytical expressions are verified by simulation results. Keywords -Bit error rate (BER), equal-gain combining (EGC), free-space optics (FSO), maximalratio combining (MRC), negative exponential fading, non-Gaussian noise, selection combining (SC).
I. IntroductionFree-space optics (FSO) communication, also known as wireless optical communication, is a license-free, highcapacity, and cost-effective communication technique, which has received considerable attention recently for a variety of applications including the cellular communication backhaul, optical fibre communications back-up links, exhibition halls and disaster recovery, among other emerging applications [1]-[2]. However, a major concern in the performance of FSO systems is the dependence of its channel on atmospheric conditions. Atmospheric turbulence occurs due to variation in refractive index due to inhomogeneities in temperature, pressure, and humidity. This results in received signal fading or scintillation, which causes severe performance degradation.