Receiver Performance Characterization for Modulating Retro-Reflector Atmospheric Optical Links With Pulsed Lasers and Optical Pre-Amplifiers
Abstract
Receiver performance is calculated for two types of free-space atmospheric optical communications systems - a direct detection system using a p-i-n photodiode preceded by an optical amplifier, and an ideal coherent receiver operated in its shot-noise limited regime without an optical pre-amplifier. The signal format for both is amplitude shift keying "onoff modulation" with an assumed rectangular light pulse of duration T seconds. The more accurate Beckman probability density function "pdf" is used to describe the intensity fading rather than the more commonly used log-normal pdf which overestimates receiver performance. A coherent receiver using asynchronous detection is shown to outperform the direct detection system with an optical pre-amplifier gain of 30 dB by anywhere from 7 to about 10 dB depending on Rytov variance intensity fading levels. In addition, the effect of inner scale turbulence parameter, l0, on system bit error rate is demonstrated.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA470521
Entities
People
- F. M. Davidson
- G. C. Gilbreath
- P. Nigon
- William S. Rabinovich
Organizations
- Johns Hopkins University