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Free space optical (FSO) links provide an efficient point-to-point wireless transmission solution. They are particularly useful for filling the connectivity gap between the radio frequency (RF) access network and the fiber optic-based backbone network. To address this combined use, there has been a growing interest in so-called mixed RF/FSO systems where RF transmission is used at one hop and FSO transmission at the other in a dual-hop configuration. In this paper, we investigate the performance of mixed RF/FSO systems along with a direct RF link where the FSO link and RF links, respectively, experience double generalized gamma turbulence with pointing error and Nakagami-$m$ fading. Moreover, the effect of cochannel interference is considered at both relay and destination. Under the assumption of amplify-and-forward relaying and selection combining at the destination, we derive closed form expressions for outage probability and bit error probability in terms of Meijer’s-G and two-variate Fox-H functions. Our analysis provides a generalized framework for several existing results, since our adopted turbulence and fading statistical models are the most general ones. Based on the high signal-to-noise-ratio analysis, we further provide a diversity gain analysis and discuss the bottlenecks in the mixed RF/FSO systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate the information theoretic performance of parallel relaying in free-space optical (FSO) communications over Gamma-Gamma fading channels. We consider an intensity modulation/direct-detection (IM/DD) FSO system with a single relay and a line-of-sight link between the source and the destination. Considering both amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward relaying, we develop performance characterizations of each relaying mode in terms of outage probability, diversity gain, coding gain, and diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT). Our results demonstrate that parallel relaying improves the performance of FSO systems by bringing diversity advantages. In addition, both relaying modes achieve the same DMT and diversity gain while their coding gains can be different depending on underlying channels' characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the performance of a cooperative vehicular network over a doubly selective fading channel using multiple antennas at source and destination vehicles. Under the assumption of amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying with orthogonal cooperation protocol and Alamouti-type space–time block coding (STBC), we derive a pairwise error probability (PEP) expression and demonstrate the achievable diversity gains. Our results demonstrate that, via proper linear constellation precoding and digital phase sweeping (DPS), the cooperative vehicular scheme is able to extract the maximum available diversity in frequency (through multipath diversity), time (through Doppler diversity), and spatial (through antenna and cooperative diversity) dimensions. We further conduct Monte Carlo simulations to confirm the analytical derivations and present the error rate performance of the vehicular scheme under various mobility conditions and scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we propose a new probability distribution function which accurately describes turbulence-induced fading under a wide range of turbulence conditions. The proposed model, termed double-generalized gamma (double GG), is based on a doubly stochastic theory of scintillation and developed via the product of two generalized gamma distributions. The proposed double GG distribution generalizes many existing turbulence channel models and provides an excellent fit to the published plane and spherical waves simulation data. Using this new statistical channel model, we derive closed form expressions for the outage probability and the average bit error as well as corresponding asymptotic expressions of free-space optical communication systems over turbulence channels. We demonstrate that our derived expressions cover many existing results in the literature earlier reported for gamma–gamma, double-Weibull and K channels as special cases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, weinvestigate the outage performance of free-space optical mesh networks, which build upon the combination of serial (multi-hop) and parallel relaying. We assume log-normal atmospheric turbulence channels and derive outage probability expressions for the multi-hop parallel relaying scheme under consideration. Our outage probability analysis demonstrates substantial performance improvements with respect to both standalone serial and parallel relaying schemes. Furthermore, we present a diversity gain analysis and quantify the achievable diversity order in terms of the number of relays and the turbulence channel parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Relay-assisted free-space optical (FSO) transmission exploits the fact that atmospheric turbulence fading variance is distance dependent and yields significant performance gains by taking advantage of the resulting shorter hops. In this paper, we investigate how to determine optimal relay locations in serial and parallel FSO relaying so as to minimize the outage probability and quantify performance improvements obtained through optimal relay placement. We further present a diversity gain analysis for serial and parallel FSO relaying schemes and quantify their diversity advantages in terms of the number of relays and channel parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Atmospheric turbulence is a major degrading factor in free-space optical (FSO) systems. Since turbulence-induced fading results in a very slowly-varying channel, reliable feedback is possible allowing the implementation of adaptive transmission in practical FSO systems. In this paper, we propose adaptive transmission algorithms in which transmit power and/or modulation size are varied according to the channel conditions. The design of adaptive algorithms is formulated as optimization problems of spectral efficiency and average power consumption at a targeted value of outage probability under peak power constraints. The proposed adaptive schemes bring significant improvements over their non-adaptive counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, we investigate the performance of a dual-hop free space optical link with an all-optical amplify-and-forward relay. We employ photon counting methodology and derive closed form expressions for the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio and the outage probability. In our derivations, we consider either full or partial channel state information (CSI) at the relay and take into account practical limitations such as amplifier noise and filtering effects. Our results indicate significant performance improvements over direct transmission and furthermore demonstrate that semi-blind relaying (which depends only on statistical CSI) provides nearly identical performance to its full-CSI counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate the error rate performance of a cooperative network with adaptive decode-and-forward (DF) relaying over time-selective frequency-flat Rayleigh-fading channels. We assume pilot-symbol-assisted modulation (PSAM) for the estimation of time-varying fading channel coefficients. For the system under consideration, we derive an exact closed-form expression for the average bit/symbol error rate, which is further validated through Monte Carlo simulations. Such closed-form solutions are highly desirable because they allow for rapid and efficient performance evaluation. Through the derived expression, we also demonstrate the effect of various system parameters such as the number of relays, Doppler values, and filter length on system performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate the performance of an amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative diversity system with multiple relays in the presence of channel estimation errors. We consider both conventional relaying (in which all relay nodes participate in the relaying phase) and opportunistic relaying (in which only a single relay is allowed to participate). We derive closed-form expressions for error probability, outage probability, and ergodic channel capacity. The derivations are confirmed through Monte Carlo simulations. We further deploy the derived expressions to obtain optimal power allocation rules for performance improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this letter, we investigate cooperative diversity with relay selection over cascaded Rayleigh fading channels. In particular, we analyze the performance of a relay selection scheme for cooperative vehicular networks with the decode-and-forward (DF) protocol. Only the “best” relay, which satisfies an index of merit, is selected. We ignore the direct transmission between the source (S) and its destination (D), and assume that the destination has perfect knowledge of the S \to R and R \to D channel gains. We study the performance of the underlying scheme in terms of outage probability and investigate its achievable diversity order. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Automatic retransmission request (ARQ) is a feedback-based data link layer technique which enhances the reliability of communication in fading channels. In this paper, we investigate the performance of hybrid-ARQ (H-ARQ) techniques in coherent free-space optical (FSO) communication systems over atmospheric turbulence-induced fading channels. Under the assumption of a Gamma-Gamma statistical fading channel model, we derive outage probability and throughput expressions for three H-ARQ protocols. We further characterize the outage performance at high values of signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) through diversity and coding gains. Our results provide insight into the performance mechanisms of different H-ARQ protocols in coherent FSO systems and demonstrate that significant performance gains can be achieved through the deployment of H-ARQ particularly in the strong turbulence regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the outage behavior of a decode-and-forward multi-hop free-space optical (FSO) system over a Poisson channel degraded by atmospheric turbulence. We assume that perfect channel side information (CSI) is available at the receiver side and consider both cases of perfect CSI and no CSI at the transmitter side. We solve the outage probability minimization problem subject to a peak power constraint as well as a short- or long-term average sum power constraint. As a result, optimal power control strategies are presented for different scenarios under consideration. A sub-optimal yet low-complexity solution is further proposed under the short-term power constraint. Our results demonstrate that multi-hop relaying yields significant performance improvements which are particularly important for long-range FSO links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate multi-hop relaying as an efficient fading mitigation tool for coherent free-space optical (FSO) systems over atmospheric turbulence channels. We consider an FSO relaying system with decode-and-forward relay nodes and multiple heterodyne receivers with modal compensation. Based on a recently introduced statistical characterization for the combined effects of log-normal turbulence fading and modal compensation, we derive the outage probability and quantify the potential performance improvements through the derivation of diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) and diversity gain. Our outage analysis yields impressive power savings for multi-hop relaying even with a single-relay. In addition, the DMT analysis in practical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ranges demonstrates that multi-hop transmission scheme improves finite-SNR diversity gain throughout the range of the multiplexing gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose high-rate distributed space-time-frequency codes (DSTFCs) to exploit maximum achievable diversity gains over frequency-selective fading channels. The proposed designs achieve full-rate for any number of cooperative nodes, and allow channel variations over multiple OFDM blocks within one DSTFC codeword. We analyze diversity gains of DSTFCs through both conditional and average pairwise error probability (PEP), and we proposes better design criteria based on one-side channel conditional PEP. We show that the difference between the frequency-selective channel orders of source-to-relay and relay-to-destination links may provide extra diversity advantages, thus additional performance gains. Through Monte-Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that proposed high-rate DSTFCs provide notable diversity advantages over existing designs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]