Performance Analysis for Relay-Aided

Multihop BPPM FSO Communication System

Over Exponentiated Weibull Fading Channels
With Pointing Error Impairments
Volume 7, Number 4, August 2015

Ping Wang
Jie Zhang
Lixin Guo, Member, IEEE
Tao Shang
Tian Cao
Ranran Wang
Yintang Yang

DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2015.2445765
1943-0655 Ó 2015 IEEE
IEEE Photonics Journal Analyzing BPPM FSO System Over EW Channels

Performance Analysis for Relay-Aided

Multihop BPPM FSO Communication
System Over Exponentiated Weibull
Fading Channels With Pointing
Error Impairments
Ping Wang,1,2 Jie Zhang,1 Lixin Guo,2 Member, IEEE, Tao Shang,1
Tian Cao,1 Ranran Wang,1 and Yintang Yang3
1
State Key Laboratory of Integrated Services Networks, School of Telecommunications Engineering,
Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
2
School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
3
Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Wide Band-Gap Semiconductor Materials and
Devices, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China

DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2015.2445765
1943-0655 Ó 2015 IEEE. Translations and content mining are permitted for academic research only.
Personal use is also permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

Manuscript received April 11, 2015; revised June 2, 2015; accepted June 11, 2015. Date of publica-
tion June 16, 2015; date of current version June 29, 2015. This work was supported in part by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61474090, by the Natural Science Basic
Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China under Grant 2014JM8340, by the China Postdoctoral
Science Special Foundation under Grant 201104659, by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
under Grant 20100481322, by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under
Grant NSIY041404, and by the 111 Project of China under Grant B08038. Corresponding author:
P. Wang (e-mail: pingwang@xidian.edu.cn).

Abstract: The performances of the decode-and-forward (DF) multihop free-space optical

communication system with exponentiated Weibull distribution considering the fading
induced by pointing error have been studied. With Meijer's G-function, the probability
density function (PDF) of the aggregated channel model and the closed-form expression
for the average bit error rate (ABER) of binary pulse position modulation are derived.
The average bit-error-rate performance is then investigated with different hop numbers
H, turbulence strength values, receiver aperture sizes, beamwidths, and jitter variances.
Compared with the case without pointing error, the mitigation effect of aperture averag-
ing for fading is more significant over the aggregated channel, regardless of the selected
H, and it is less effective for the degradation induced by the increase in H, which can be
restrained by larger beamwidth and lower jitter. The outage probability is also investi-
gated, and the results show that aperture averaging has less of an effect on the outage
probability under moderate turbulence than that under the weak turbulence condition at
a given value of H, which is different from the scenario without pointing error. After this,
the end-to-end average capacity is analyzed. Monte Carlo simulation is provided to con-
firm the validity of the proposed ABER expression.

Index Terms: Exponentiated Weibull distribution, average bit error rate (ABER), decode
and forward (DF), multihop free-space optical communication, pointing error.

1. Introduction
Free space optical (FSO) communication, as a solution for the “last mile” problem to bridge the
bandwidth gap between the end users and the fiber optic networks, has attracted significant

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IEEE Photonics Journal Analyzing BPPM FSO System Over EW Channels

attention recently. Compared with the wireless RF communication, FSO has multitude of advan-
tages, including license-free with high-bandwidth capacity, full-duplex gigabit rate throughput,
immunity to electromagnetic interference, inherent security, cost-effective, easy-to-install, etc.
[1]–[4]. However, FSO suffers from two serious atmospheric related issues particularly with
transmission distance longer than 1 km, which would degrade the link's performance and reli-
ability as the major limiting factors. One is the atmospheric turbulence, which takes place be-
cause of the variations in the refractive index due to the inhomogeneities in temperature and
pressure fluctuations [5], [6]. Another issue is the pointing error that occurs due to the sway of
high-rise buildings as a result of wind loads, thermal expansions and weak earthquakes, and
causes vibrations of both the transmitter beam and the receiver telescope (field of view), moving
them from the common line of sight [7]–[9]. To overcome the two above-mentioned impairments,
relay-aided transmission scheme has been proposed as a fading-mitigation technique for FSO
communication [3], [10]–[12]. Among variety of relay transmission systems, two typical configu-
rations always be employed including the parallel relay transmission (i.e., cooperative diversity)
and serial relay transmission (i.e., multihop transmission). Parallel relaying is a transmission
scheme in which an artificial broadcasting is achieved using multi-laser transmit apertures di-
rected to the relay nodes, but its performance gains are less than those observed in serial relay-
ing since parallel relaying (with only two hops) exploits distance-dependency of fading variance
to a lesser extent [12], [13]. Multihop transmission is another important relaying scheme, which
was first proposed by Acampora and Krishnamurthy in [14] and some theoretical and experi-
mental studies dealing with it have been carried out [15]–[21]. This scheme is adopted to
broaden the signal coverage for limited-power transmitters and mitigate the fading in long-
distance FSO transmission. Normally, its performance can be improved as the number of relays
increases. Amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) are the mostly used relaying
protocols in multihop relay-aided system. AF relaying is a simple implement in which the received
signal is amplified and forwarded to the next node and up to now, some studies have been re-
ported on the system performance of AF-based FSO multi-hop transmission and they found that
its performance gains are less than those observed in DF relaying [12], [18]–[21]. DF strategy is
another relaying technique that the received signal is first decoded at the relay before it is re-
encoded and forwarded to the next node. In fact, it is advantageous over AF relaying in channels
with an increasing number of relays and has been used in multi-hop FSO transmission schemes,
as an important relaying protocol.
Various statistical fading models have been proposed in order to describe the optical channel
characteristics with respect to the atmospheric turbulence, including the log-normal (LN), K and
Gamma-Gamma (GG) distributions [22]. LN distribution is valid in weak turbulence regime. In
[23], outage probability and diversity gain of FSO multi-hop relaying system with decode-and-
forward relays and multiple heterodyne receivers have been analyzed over LN distributed fading
channel. After that, taking pointing error into consideration, [24] studies the end-to-end ABER
performance of DF serial relaying system over weak turbulence based on LN distribution. K dis-
tribution is another commonly used fading channel, which is adopted for the strong turbulence
regime [25]. Compared with LN and K distributions, GG distribution is accepted to be valid in all
the turbulence regimes [26]. The outage probability of multihop and average bit error rate
(ABER) of dual-hop DF FSO communication systems over GG distribution fading channels have
been studied in [27]. Further, in [28], the authors investigated a two-way relay assisted coherent
free space optical system when the optical beam is subjected to GG atmospheric turbulence
and misalignment errors, and derived the closed form expressions for system outage and sym-
bol error rate in terms of Meijer's G-function. However, for larger receiver apertures under mod-
erate-to-strong turbulence conditions, GG distribution does not work very well [29]. Very
recently, a new more generalized turbulence model called exponentiated Weibull (EW) distribu-
tion has been first proposed in [30] and [31], which can be used for all turbulence conditions as
well as aperture averaging taking place. The study in [30] showed that the proposed EW distri-
bution offers excellent fit to the probability density function (PDF) of irradiance for both simula-
tion and experiment data in weak-to-strong turbulence regime, under all aperture averaging

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IEEE Photonics Journal Analyzing BPPM FSO System Over EW Channels

Fig. 1. Decode-and-forward multi-hop FSO system.

conditions, as well as for point-like apertures. It substantially outperforms the LN and GG

models with aperture averaging taken into account. So far, some works have been reported on
the average bit error rate (ABER) and outage performance of FSO communication systems over
EW distribution [30]–[37]. However, all of them are based on the point-to-point scheme. More-
over, only very limited study has been carried out on the performance of DF multihop FSO sys-
tem over EW distribution and it does not include the effect of pointing error [38].
Motivated by the above analysis, a binary pulse position modulation (BPPM) multi-hop FSO
communication system with DF relay transmission over the EW fading channels with pointing er-
ror has been proposed and studied in this paper. Based on the analysis of the statistical charac-
teristic of the aggregated fading channels, the PDF and cumulative distribution function (CDF)
of the channel gain have been obtained. The closed-form expressions of the end-to-end ABER
and outage probability with BPPM modulation are then derived for this studied FSO system in
terms of Meijer's G-function. After that, the end-to-end average capacity is investigated. Monte
Carlo simulation is also provided to confirm the correctness of the analytical ABER expressions.

2. System and Channel Fading Models

2.1. System Model

As shown in Fig. 1, a DF-based multi-hop FSO system is considered in which H hops are as-
sumed. The signal from the source (node 0) is transmitted through H
1 serial relays and then
detected at the destination (node H). Statistical independence among the channels of succes-
sive hops is assumed in this paper. In each PP link, the received electrical signal of the ith hop
can be expressed as
yi ¼ hi Rxi þ ni (1)
where i ¼ 1 . . . H, R is the detector responsivity, hi is the aggregated channel gain of the ith
hop, and ni is signal-independent additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) with variance
2n .
Here, the intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) are considered in this system, and
BPPM is adopted as the modulation scheme. The transmitted signal in ith hop xi is partitioned
into two slots i.e., xi ¼ ðxi0 ; xi1 Þ, and one of them has the amplitude of Pt , which is the average
transmitted optical power in each link while the other is zero. Hence, the instantaneous electrical
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver in ith hop is defined as

R 2 Pt2 hi2
i ¼ i hi2 ¼ (2)
2
2n

where i ¼ R 2 Pt2 =2
2n is the average electrical SNR.

2.2. Channel Model

An aggregated channel model in each PP link is proposed in this paper, which consists of
three factors i.e., the path loss hil , the fading due to the atmospheric turbulence hia , and the
pointing error hip . Since hil is deterministic, and hia and hip are independent (actually, the point-
ing error will be influenced by the equivalent beamwidth at the receiver which may vary with

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the turbulence strength. But it is not considered in this work), the channel gain in (1) can be
written as

hi ¼ hil hia hip : (3)

Since hil is deterministic, without loss of generality, hil ¼ 1 is assumed throughout this work.
Considering the independent and identical Gaussian distributions with jitter variance
2s for
both horizontal and vertical sway, the probability density of hip in (3) is given as [39]

 2i
2i
1
fhp hip ¼ 2i
hip ; 0  hip  Ai (4)
i
ðAi Þ

where i ¼ WLeqi =ð2
s Þ is the ratio between the equivalent beamwidth at the receiver and the point-
ing error standard deviation at the receiver, WLeqi is the equivalent beamwidth and it can be ex-
pffiffiffi
pressed as WLeq 2
i
¼ WL2i erf ðvi Þ=ð2vi expð
vi2 ÞÞ, here, erf ðÞ is the error function. Ai ¼ ½erf ðvi Þ2 is
the fraction of the collected optical power when the difference between the optical spot center and
pffiffiffi pffiffiffi
the detector center is equal to zero, here, vi ¼ a=ð 2WLi Þ is the ratio between aperture radius
and beamwidth at the distance of Li .
As mentioned earlier, EW distribution is used to model the fading due to atmospheric turbu-
lence, and the corresponding PDF and CDF are given in [31]. Then, the PDF and CDF of hia in
each PP link can be expressed as

 a i
1 "   # ( "   #)i
1

 i i hi hia i ha i
fhia ðhia Þ ¼ exp
 1
exp
i ; hia  0 (5)
i i i i

and
( "   #)i

 h a i
Fhia hia ¼ 1
exp
i ; hia  0 (6)
i

where i > 0, i > 0 are the shape parameters, respectively, and i > 0 is a scale parameter.
According to [30, Eqs. (10)–(12)] and [31, Eqs. (20)–(22)], it is easy to calculate the shape pa-
rameters i , i and the scale parameter i in each link. However, the expressions do not work
very well for point aperture case. So the parameters adopted to perform the analytical calcula-
tion and Monte Carlo simulation are all extracted from the best PDF fitting in [35]. Mathemati-
cally, the PDF of the channel gain hi ¼ hil hia hip can be expressed as [39]
Z



fhi ðhi Þ ¼ fhi jhia hi jhia fhia hia dhia (7)

where the conditional PDF fhi jhia ðhi jhia Þ is given by [39]

   2

 1 hi 2 hi i
1
fhi jhia hi jhia ¼ a l fhp a l ¼ 2 i a l
; 0  hi  Ai hia hil : (8)
hi h i i h i h i A i ha h l hi hi i i i

Since hil ¼ 1 is assumed, the conditional PDF fhi jhia ðhi jhia Þ is given by

   2
1

 1 hi 2 hi i
fhi jhia hi jhia ¼ a fhp a ¼ 2i a ; 0  hi  Ai hia : (9)
hi i hi A i ha hi i i

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Here, F ðÞ denotes the cumulative distribution function (CDF). Substituting (9) into (7), the PDF
of hi is given by
Z1
2i 2i
1

2i

fhi ðhi Þ ¼ 2 i
h hia fhia hia dhia : (10)
Ai i hi =Ai
P
By applying the Newton's generalized binomial theorem ð1 þ zÞs ¼ 1 m¼0 ððs þ 1Þ=m!ðs

m þ 1ÞÞz m to expand the last term in (5) and inserting it in (10), the PDF of hi can be obtained as
2
1 1
"   #
i 2i hi i X ð
1Þm ði Þ 2i hi i
fhi ðhi Þ ¼  1
; ð1 þ mÞ (11)
ði Ai Þi m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1 þ mÞ1
i =i
2 2
i i Ai

where ða; zÞ is the upper incomplete Gamma function. Although (11) is given in terms of an infi-
nite summation, it is a fast convergent series.
The upper incomplete Gamma function can be expressed in terms of the Meijer's G-function
[40, Eq. (06.06.26.0005.01)]
 
 1
2;0
ða; zÞ ¼ G1;2 x  : (12)
0; a
By using (11) and (12), the PDF of hi can be expressed as
2
1 1
"  i  #
i 2i hi i X ð
1Þm ði Þ hi  1
fhi ðhi Þ ¼ 2;0
ð1 þ mÞ 
G1;2  0; 1
i : (13)
2

ði Ai Þi
2
m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1 þ mÞ 1
2i =i i Ai i

Then, by applying [41, Eq.(26)], the CDF of hi gives

2  3
 2 X
1 i 
 2i
i 2i hi i m
ð
1Þ ði Þ hi  1; 1

Fhi ðhi Þ ¼ 2;1 4
G2;3 ð1þmÞ  i 5
: (14)
i i Ai i Ai  0; 1
i ; i
2 2

mÞð1 þ mÞ1
i =i
2
m¼0 m!ði   i i

3. Average BER Analysis

In this section, the end-to-end average BER from the source node to the destination node for
serial relay-aided FSO communication system with and without pointing error are compared
and analyzed. Let PðiÞ be the ABER of the ith hop, and Pi be the ABER from source (node 0)
to the node i. Since the channels of successive hops are independent, the ABER Pi can be cal-
culated as
Pi ¼ ð1
Pi
1 ÞPðiÞ þ Pi
1 ð1
PðiÞÞ; i ¼ 1 . . . H: (15)
The initial condition for (15) is given by P0 ¼ 0. Then, the ABER from source to the destina-
tion can be given by [42]
( )
XH Y
H
PH ¼ PðiÞ ð1
2PðjÞÞ : (16)
i¼1 j¼iþ1

3.1. Negligible Pointing Error

For a FSO system over a turbulence channel, the average bit error rate PðiÞ for ith hop can
be calculated by the conditional error rate Pejhia , which is written as
Z1


PðiÞ ¼ fhia hia Pejhia dhia : (17)
0

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Since the CDF of hia has a more compact form than that of the PDF, (17) can be simplified with
the help of the CDF of the variable hia and the method of integration by parts, yielding

Z1
0

a a
PðiÞ ¼
Pejh a Fh a hi
i
dhi (18)
i
0

0
where Fhia ðhia Þ is the CDF of the variable hia and Pejh a is the first order derivative of Pejh a with re-
i
i
spect to hia .
For BPPM modulation, the conditional BER over an AWGN channel can be obtained as
 
1 RPt ha
Pejhia ¼ erfc pffiffiffi i (19)
2 2
n

where erfcðÞ is the complementary error function. According to [34], the first order derivative of
0
the conditional BER Pejh a can be achieved as
i

!
0 Ri Pt R 2 Pt2 hia 2
Pejh a ¼
pffiffiffiffiffiffi exp
: (20)
i
2
n 2
2n

Then, substituting (6) and (20) into (18), the average BER for the ith hop PðiÞ can be written as

Z1 ! ( "   #)i
Ri Pt R 2 Pt2 hia 2 ha i
PðiÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffi exp
 1
exp
i dhia : (21)
2
n 2
2n i
0

Making the change of variable x ¼ R 2 Pt2 hia 2 =2
2n from (21), we get
8 !i 3i 9
2
Z1 < pffiffiffi =
1 2
n p ffiffiffi
PðiÞ ¼ pffiffiffi x
1=2 expð
x Þ  1
exp4
x 5 dx : (22)
2  : RPt i ;
0

R1 P
Using the generalized Gauss-Laguerre quadrature function 0 x  e
x f ðx Þdx ¼ tk ¼1 Wk f ðxk Þ
as mentioned in [34], (22) can be further expressed by a truncated series as
8 2 !i 3i 9
< pffiffiffi =
1 X t
2
pffiffiffiffiffi
Wk 1
exp4
5
n
PðiÞ ¼ pffiffiffi xk : (23)
2  k ¼1 : RPt i ;

Since the average electrical SNR is i ¼ R 2 Pt2 =2
2n , (23) can be simplified as
( "   #i )
1 X t
1 pffiffiffiffiffi i
PðiÞ ¼ pffiffiffi Wk 1
exp
pffiffiffiffi xk : (24)
2  k ¼1  i i

ð
1=2Þ
Here, xk is the k th root of the generalized Laguerre polynomial Lt ðx Þ, and the weight Wk can
be calculated by [34]
ðt þ 1=2Þxk
Wk ¼ h i2 : (25)
ð
1=2Þ
t !ðt þ 1Þ2 Lt þ1 ðxk Þ

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Substituting (23) into (16), the closed form end-to-end ABER expression without pointing error is
obtained as
" ( "   #i )!
XH
1 X t
1 pffiffiffiffiffi i
PH ¼ pffiffiffi Wk 1
exp
pffiffiffiffi xk
i¼1
2  k ¼1 i i
0 8 2 !j 3j 913
YH Xt < 1 pffiffiffiffiffi 5 =A5
 @1
p1ffiffiffi Wk 1
exp4
pffiffiffiffi xk : (26)
j¼iþ1
 k ¼1 : j j ;

3.2. Non-Negligible Pointing Error

As known, the receiver irradiance can be expressed as hi ¼ hia hip with the pointing error taken
into account. In this case, the average error rate PðiÞ for ith hop over this aggregated channel is
given by
Z1
PðiÞ ¼ Pejhi fhi ðhi Þdhi : (27)
0

The conditional BER over an AWGN channel is written as

 
1 RPt hi
Pejhi ¼ erfc pffiffiffi : (28)
2 2
n

As known, the function erfcðÞ can be expressed as Meijer's G-function [40, Eq. (06.27.26.0006.01)]
 
1 2;0 2  1
erfcðx Þ ¼ pffiffiffi G1;2 x  1 : (29)
 0; 2

By using (29) into (28), the conditional BER of hi is given by

 2 2 2
1 
2;0 R Pt hi  1
Pejhi ¼ pffiffiffi G1;2 1 : (30)
2  2
2n  0; 2

Substituting (13) and (30) into (27), the ABER for the ith hop can be further written as
8
1 <
1 i 2i X ð
1Þm ði Þ
PðiÞ ¼ pffiffiffi
2  ði Ai Þi m¼0:m!ði
mÞð1 þ mÞ1
2i =i
2

Z1   "  i  # 9
R 2 Pt2 hi2  1 1 =
2
1 2;0 2;0 h i 
 hi i G1;2 G ð1 þ mÞ  dh : (31)
2
2n  0; 12 1;2
2
i
i Ai  0; 1
ii ;
0

According to [43, Eq. (2.24.1.1)], a closed-form ABER expression for the ith hop with the aggre-
gated fading channel can be simplified as
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi2ffi !2i
1
2
1
2i
i 2i ki li X
1
ð
1Þm ði Þ
PðiÞ ¼
2i ði Ai Þ2 ð2Þðli þki Þ=2 i ði Ai Þ2 1
i =i 2
m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1 þ mÞ
2 

 3
 ki !li  i
2
2i
  l ; 1
;  l ; 1

; ðk ; 1Þ
2ki ;2li 6 1þm li  i 2 i 2 2 i
7
G2li þki ;2ki þli
4 

 5: (32)
i ði Ai Þ2  ðki ; 0Þ;  ki ; 1
i ;  li ;
i
2 2
ki
i 2

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Here, ðk ; aÞ is defined as ðk ; aÞ ¼ a=k ; ða þ 1Þ=k ;    ; ða þ k
1Þ=k and the average SNR
i ¼ R 2 Pt2 =2
2n . l and k are the integer numbers that satisfy l=k ¼ i =2.
Substituting (32) into (16), the closed form end-to-end ABER expression is obtained as
2 qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi2ffi !2i
1
2
1
2i
X
H 6
i 2i ki li X
1
ð
1Þm ði Þ
PH ¼ 6
4
2i ði Ai Þ2 ð2Þðli þki Þ=2 i ði Ai Þ
mÞð1 þ mÞ1
i =i
2 2
i¼1 m¼0 m!ði

2  3
 ki !li 
2i


2i

  l ; 1
;  l ; 1

; ðk ; 1Þ
2ki ;2li 6 1þm li  i 2 i 2 2 i
7
 G2l i þki ;2ki þli
4 

5
ki i ði Ai Þ2   2
 2
 ðki ; 0Þ;  ki ; 1
ii ;  li ;
2i
2 r ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi 2
1
22j !2j
1
Y6
H  
j j
2
k j lj X1
ð
1Þm ði Þ
61

4
j ðj Aj Þ2 ð2Þðli þki Þ=2 j ðj Aj Þ 1
2i =i
2
j¼iþ1 m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1 þ mÞ

2      333
!lj   lj ; 1
j ;  lj ; 1
j ; ðkj ; 1Þ
2 2
 
6 1 þ m kj 777
2kj ;2lj 6 lj  2 2 2
777
 G2lj þk 6      777: (33)
;2k þl j4 
 ðk ; 0Þ;  k ; 1
j ;  l ;
j 555
2
j j
kj j ðj Aj Þ 2 2

 j j j j 2

4. Outage Probability Analysis

The outage probability is defined as the probability that the instantaneous SNR is lower than a
specified threshold [34]. In a DF multi-hop FSO communication system, the outage performance
of the system depends on the outage probability of each hop. Hence, the outage probability is
given by

Y
H H 
Y  rffiffiffiffiffiffi
th
Pout ðth Þ ¼ P ½minði Þ  th  ¼ 1
½1
Pði  th Þ ¼ 1
1
P hi  : (34)
i¼1 i¼1
i

Substituting (6) into (34), the analytical outage probability of this system without pointing error
can be achieved as
( "   #)i !
YH  rffiffiffiffiffiffi Y
th H
1 i
Pout ¼ 1
1
Fia
¼1
1
1
exp
: (35)
i¼1
i i¼1
i  n

Then, substituting (14) to (34), the analytical outage probability with pointing error can be
achieved as
YH  rffiffiffiffiffiffi
th
Pout ¼ 1
1
Fi
i¼1
i
"  2 X
YH
i 2i 1 i 1 ð
1Þm ði Þ
¼1
1
pffiffiffiffiffi
i¼1
i i Ai n m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1 þ mÞ
1
2i =i
2  33
   2i
2;1 4 hi i  1; 1
i 55
 G2;3 ð1 þ mÞ (36)
i Ai  0; 1
2i ; 2i
i i

where n ¼ i =th is the normalized electrical SNR defined in [22].

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5. Average Capacity Analysis

For the DF based multihop FSO system, the equivalent instantaneous SNR at the destination
can be written as
equ ¼ minð1 ; 2 ; . . . ; H Þ: (37)
The CDF of equ , Fequ ðÞ can be given as
Fequ ðÞ ¼ Prðequ  Þ ¼ Prðminð1 ; 2 ; . . . H Þ   Þ (38)
where i ði ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; H) is the instantaneous electrical SNR of the ith hop. Thus, the CDF of
equ can be written as

H
Fequ ðÞ ¼ 1
Fi ðÞ (39)
where Fi ðÞ is the CDF of instantaneous SNR for each hop. Taking the derivative of (39) with
respect to , the PDF of equ , fequ ðÞ can be obtained as follows:

H
1
fequ ðÞ ¼ H  1
Fi ðÞ fi ðÞ (40)
where fi ðÞ is the PDF of instantaneous SNR for each hop. Then, the average channel capacity
of the considered DF based multihop FSO system is given by [44]
Z1
1
Cave ¼ lnð1 þ Þfequ ðÞd : (41)
lnð2Þ
0

5.1. Capacity Analysis Under Negligible Pointing Errors

Since the instantaneous electrical SNR at the receiver in the ith hop is defined as i ¼ i hi2
given by (2), Based on (5), the PDF of i can be given as
rffiffiffiffi i
1 " rffiffiffiffi  #( " rffiffiffiffi  #)i
1
1 i i  1  1 i  1 i
fi ðÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffi exp
1
exp
: (42)
2  i i i i i  i i

Then, the CDF of i can be expressed as

( " rffiffiffiffi  #)i

 1 i
Fi ðÞ ¼ 1
exp
: (43)
 i i

By substituting (42) and (43) into (40), the PDF of equ is achieved as
( " rffiffiffiffi  #)i !H
1 rffiffiffiffi i
1
 1 i 1  i i  1
fequ ðÞ ¼ H  1
1
exp
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 i i 2 i i i  i
" rffiffiffiffi  #( " rffiffiffiffi  #)i
1
 1 i  1 i
exp
1
exp
: (44)
 i i  i i

Then, substituting (44) into (41), the average channel capacity can be expressed as
Z1 ( " rffiffiffiffi  #)i !H
1
1  1 i
Cave ¼ lnð1 þ ÞH 1
1
exp

lnð2Þ  i i
0
rffiffiffiffi i
1 " rffiffiffiffi  #( " rffiffiffiffi  #)i
1
1  i i  1  1 i  1 i
 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi exp
1
exp
d : (45)
2 i i  i i  i i  i i

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Using the generalized Gauss-Laguerre quadrature function, (45) can be further expressed by a
truncated series as
( " rffiffiffiffiffi  #)i !H
1
1 X p 1 i
q
p
Cave ¼ Ap e lnð1 þ p ÞH 1
1
exp

lnð2Þ p¼1  i i
rffiffiffiffiffi i
1 " rffiffiffiffiffi i #( " rffiffiffiffiffi  #)i
1
1  i i p 1 p 1 p 1 i
 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi exp
1
exp
: (46)
2 p i i  i i i i i i
ð
1=2Þ
Here, p is the pth root of the generalized Laguerre polynomial Lq ðÞ, and the weight Ap can
be calculated by [34]

ðq þ 1=2Þp
Ap ¼ h i2 : (47)
ð
1=2Þ
q!ðq þ 1Þ2 Lqþ1 ðp Þ

5.2. Capacity Analysis Under Non-Negligible Pointing Errors

According to (13), the PDF and CDF of instantaneous electrical SNR in the ith hop are
given as
rffiffiffiffi2i
1 X1
" rffiffiffiffii  #
1 i 2i  ð
1Þm ði Þ 2;0 ð1 þ mÞ   1
fi ðÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi G1;2  2
2 i ði Ai Þ2i i m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1
mÞ
1
2i =i
ði Ai Þi i  0; 1
ii
(48)
2  3
rffiffiffiffi  r ffiffiffiffi    2
i i
2
  2
i X1 m
ð
1Þ ði Þ 2;1 4ð1 þ mÞ  i 1
i
; 1
Fi ðÞ ¼ G2;3  i 5:
 i  
2i 1
2i =i
 0; 1
;
i
2i 2
i ði Ai Þ i m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1
mÞ ð A
i i Þ i
i i
(49)

By substituting (48) and (49) into (40), the PDF of equ is achieved as
( rffiffiffiffi2i X 1
i 2i  ð
1Þm ði Þ
fequ ðÞ ¼ H  1

i ði Ai Þi
2
i m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1
mÞ
1
2i =i
2  9
3 H
1
rffiffiffiffii  1
2i ; 1 = rffiffiffiffi2i
1
2;1 4ð1 þ mÞ    1 i 2i 
 G2;3  i 5 p ffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi
i     ;   2

ði Ai Þ
2 2
i  0; 1
i ;
i 2 i ði Ai Þ i i
" i i
r ffiffiffiffi  #
X1 m
ð
1Þ ði Þ  
2;0 ð1 þ mÞ  i 1
 G  2 : (50)
m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1
mÞ
1
i =i
2 1;2 
ði Ai Þ i i  0; 1
ii

Then, substituting (50) into (41), the average channel capacity with pointing error is obtained as
Z1 ( rffiffiffiffi2i X 1
1 i 2i  ð
1Þm ði Þ
Cave ¼ lnð1 þ ÞH 1

lnð2Þ i ði Ai Þi
2
i m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1
mÞ
1
2i =i
0
2  39H
1
rffiffiffiffii  1
2i ; 1 =
ð1 þ mÞ    1 i 2i
2;1 4
 G2;3  i 5 p ffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi
ði Ai Þi i  0; 1
i ;
i ;
2 2
2 i ði Ai Þ2i
i i
rffiffiffiffi2i
1 X1
" rffiffiffiffii  #
 ð
1Þm ði Þ 2;0 ð1 þ mÞ   1
 G1;2  2 d  (51)
i m¼0 m!ði
mÞð1
mÞ
1
2i =i
ði Ai Þi i  0; 1
ii

and this equation can be numerically calculated by Romberg integration method.

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TABLE 1
Some parameters of the system

6. Analytical and Simulation Results

In this section, the theoretical results of end-to-end ABER, outage probability, and the average
capacity of multi-hop DF relaying FSO system with and without pointing errors have been
achieved from (33), (36), and (51), as well as (26), (35), (46), respectively. The inverse trans-
form method is used in Monte Carlo (MC) simulation to generate random values from EW turbu-
lence and pointing error. In computing the generalized Gauss-Laguerre approximations, t is
chosen to be 30 and for the infinite summation in (33) and (36), about 30 terms of m are needed
for the series to converge. Besides, the number of hops H ¼ 1; 5 in (26), (33), (35), (36), (46),
and (51) is considered in order to avoid entanglement. Without loss of generality, the equal dis-
tance in each link and equal average SNR at each node is also assumed. Details of the system
parameters adopted in all simulations are summarized in Table 1.
Fig. 2 shows the average BER of single hop ðH ¼ 1Þ and five hops ðH ¼ 5Þ with turbulence
only for two aperture sizes of 200 mm, 100 mm. Under weak, moderate and strong turbulence
conditions, the corresponding Rytov variance
2R equals to 0.32, 2.22, and 15.97, respectively. It
is seen from the figure that the analytical results have excellent agreements with the corre-
sponding MC simulation results, which confirms the accuracy of our model. It is also seen that
the ABER of this system increases with the increase of the strength of atmosphere turbulence
or the decrease of the aperture size, which have been confirmed in the FSO PP link over EW
turbulence channel [34]. For example, in Fig. 2(b), when the SNR equals 10 dB, the ABER of
H ¼ 5 is about 0:2  10
3 in weak turbulence while it is about 0:4  10
1 in strong turbulence
for D ¼ 100 mm. As the aperture size increases from 100 mm to 200 mm under strong turbu-
lence condition, the ABER of H ¼ 5 decreases from 0:410
1 to 0:810
2 for the SNR of 10 dB,
as can be found in Fig. 2(a). Besides, the ABER values increase with the increasing hops for differ-
ent apertures over EW fading channels. But this effect can be restrained by the aperture averaging
[38]. For example, in weak turbulence regime, at the given ABER of 10
5 , the SNR difference of
H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 is about 1 dB with a receiver of 100 mm aperture, but 0.75 dB for the aperture
size of 200 mm. For strong turbulence, to achieve the ABER of 10
5 , the SNR difference of H ¼ 1
and H ¼ 5 is about 3 dB with a receiver of 100 mm aperture, but 2 dB when the aperture size of
200 mm is used.
The end-to-end average BER of H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 based on the combined fading channels
with pointing error against the SNR is shown in Fig. 3. The pointing error jitter
s and beamwidth
WL are 30 cm and 2 m, respectively. It is seen that the analytical results match very well with
the MC simulations, which verifies the validity of the proposed model. For the two aperture
sizes, the ABER values increase with the increasing hop number H. For example, for 200 mm
receiver aperture, under weak turbulence condition, when the SNR is equal to 60 dB, the ABER
of H ¼ 1 is about 9  10
7 , while it is about 4:5  10
6 for H ¼ 5. For 100 mm aperture, under

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Fig. 2. End-to-end ABER against the average SNR for the multi-hop system with turbulence only
under the aperture sizes (a) D ¼ 200 mm and (b) D ¼ 100 mm.

the same turbulence condition, when the SNR is equal to 60 dB, the ABER of H ¼ 1 is about
8  10
2 , while it is about 2:7  10
1 for H ¼ 5. Compared with Fig. 2, it can be found that the
system performance is seriously degraded by the effect of pointing error. Besides, it can be ob-
served that the influence of aperture averaging on end-to-end ABER at a given value of H in the
presence of pointing error is stronger than that without misalignment. For example, in strong tur-
bulence, compared with the aperture receiver ðD ¼ 100 mmÞ, the receiver ðD ¼ 200 mmÞ offers
a performance gain of about 18 dB with H ¼ 1 in terms of the SNR to reach the average BER of
10
5 , which is larger than that of the turbulence only condition (about 9 dB performance gain).
This shows that aperture averaging is very effective to restrain the variances of the power and
intensity induced by the turbulence and pointing error together. In addition, it is found from the
figure that aperture averaging can also mitigate the degradation due to the increase of hops
ðHÞ, but the system performance improvement is not very obvious compared with that without
misalignment in Fig. 2. For example, in Fig. 3, to achieve the ABER of 10
5 , under the weak tur-
bulence condition, the SNR differences between H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 are only approximate 1.4 dB
and 1.5 dB for the aperture sizes of 200 mm and 100 mm, respectively, and for strong turbu-
lence, to achieve the ABER of 10
5 , the SNR differences between H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 are also

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Fig. 3. End-to-end ABER of multi-hop relaying with turbulence and pointing error for aperture sizes
of (a) D ¼ 200 mm (
s =a ¼ 3, WL =a ¼ 20) and (b) D ¼ 100 mm (
s =a ¼ 6, WL =a ¼ 40).

about 1.4 dB and 1.5 dB with D ¼ 200 mm and D ¼ 100 mm, respectively. Furthermore, it can
be observed from Fig. 3 that the atmosphere turbulence has almost no influence on the degra-
dation induced by the increased hops with pointing error considered, which is different from the
condition with turbulence only. For instance, to achieve the average BER of 10
5 , for
D ¼ 200 mm, the SNR differences between H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 in weak and strong turbulence are
both about 1.4 dB, while the SNR differences are 0.75 dB and 2 dB respectively for the condi-
tion with turbulence only.
The end-to-end ABER of the multi-hop FSO communication under weak and moderate turbu-
lences with different beamwidth (WL ¼ 1:5 m and WL ¼ 1 m) and fixed jitter ð
s ¼ 30 cmÞ
against average SNR is illustrated in Fig. 4. It can be found that for lower SNR, the end-to-end
ABER at a given value of H is better with a narrow beam width and when the SNR continues to
increase, the phenomenon is opposite. This is because for a lower value of SNR, the ABER per-
formance is mainly limited by the transmitted power. A narrow beam width can enhance the col-
lected optical power better than the wide beamwidth can. Thus, the former shows a better
ABER performance. With the increase of the SNR, the ABER performance is mainly limited by
the pointing error. However, the wide beamwidth performs better than the narrow beamwidth

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Fig. 4. ABER performance of multi-hop FSO system with beamwidth WL ¼ 1:5 m, 1 m, and fixed jit-
ter
s ¼ 30 cm under (a) weak turbulence condition and (b) moderate turbulence condition.

does with misalignment considered [39]. Thus, the wide beamwidth shows a better ABER per-
formance. For instance, in Fig. 4(b), under the moderate turbulence condition with SNR equal to
40 dB, when the beamwidth decreases from 1.5 m to 1 m, the ABER of H ¼ 1 decreases from
1:9  10
1 to 0:5  10
1 . However, when the SNR equals 60 dB, the ABER of H ¼ 1 increases
from 2:5  10
6 to 7  10
5 . It can be further seen from Fig. 4 that the degradation of ABER
with the increased hops can be mitigated by widening the beamwidth. For example, under mod-
erate turbulence condition, for the aperture size of 200 mm, to achieve the average BER of
10
5 , the SNR differences of H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 are about 2.5 dB and 5 dB for WL ¼ 1:5 m and
WL ¼ 1 m, respectively.
The end-to-end ABER of the multi-hop FSO communication under weak and moderate turbu-
lence conditions with different jitter (
s ¼ 40 cm,
s ¼ 50 cm) for WL ¼ 1:5 m against average
SNR is shown in Fig. 5. It can be found that the ABER increases with the increasing jitter. This
is because that the effect of misalignment between the transmitter and the receiver will become
stronger when the jitter increases, leading to a degradation of the ABER. For instance, under
moderate turbulence condition, when the SNR value is equal to 60 dB, the ABERs for
s of
40 cm, 50 cm are approximately equal to 0:3  10
3 , and 0:4  10
2 for H ¼ 1 ðD ¼ 200 mmÞ. It

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Fig. 5. ABER performance of multi-hop FSO system with jitter
s ¼ 40 cm, 50 cm, and fixed beam
width WL ¼ 1:5 m under (a) weak turbulence condition and (b) moderate turbulence condition.

is also seen that the degradation of the system performance by the increasing hops can be miti-
gated with lower jitter. For example, for D ¼ 200 mm, to achieve the average BER of 10
5 , in-
creasing H from 1 to 5 can result in the SNR penalty of about 4 dB and 7 dB for
s ¼ 40 cm and

s ¼ 50 cm under weak turbulence, respectively.
Fig. 6 shows the outage probability of the multi-hop FSO system (WL ¼ 2 m,
s ¼ 30 cm) with
H ¼ 1 at different SNRs. Two aperture sizes, D ¼ 200 mm and D ¼ 100 mm, have been consid-
ered for both weak and moderate turbulence conditions. It can be seen that compared with the
case without considering pointing error, to achieve the same outage probability, a higher SNR
value is required under the same turbulence condition with misalignment for D ¼ 200 mm and
D ¼ 100 mm. For example, in weak turbulence regime, to achieve the outage probability of
10
10 , about 64 dB of SNR is needed for the receiver ðD ¼ 200 mmÞ with H ¼ 1 while only 10 dB
is needed with turbulence only. Additionally, it can be found that in the presence of pointing er-
rors, aperture averaging has less effects on outage probability under moderate turbulence con-
dition with respect to weak turbulence condition, and it is different from that observed in
absence of pointing error shown in Fig. 6(a). The outage probabilities with H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 un-
der weak turbulence condition over EW fading (WL ¼ 2 m,
s ¼ 30 cm) channels with pointing

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Fig. 6. Outage probability versus SNR for multi-hop FSO system under weak and moderate with
H ¼ 1 in fading channels (a) without pointing error and (b) with pointing error.

error have been given in Fig. 7. Two aperture sizes of D ¼ 200 mm and D ¼ 100 mm have
been considered. It can be further found from this figure that the outage probability decreases
with the increase of aperture size regardless of the selected hops of the system with and without
pointing error. For example, in Fig. 7(a), when the SNR equals to 5 dB and the aperture size in-
creases from 100 mm to 200 mm, the outage probability of H ¼ 1 decreases from 0:8  10
3 to
10
5 , and that of H ¼ 5 decreases from 0:7  10
2 to 0:2  10
3 . In Fig. 7(b), when the SNR
equals to 60 dB and the aperture size increases from 100 mm to 200 mm, the outage probability
of H ¼ 1 decreases from 0.8 to 0:6  10
7 , and that of H ¼ 5 decreases from 0.9 to 10
7 . In ad-
dition, when the aperture size is fixed, the outage probability increases with the increasing hops.
For instance, in Fig. 7(a), to achieve the outage probability of 10
10 , about 15 dB and 16.5 dB are
needed for H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 respectively with 100 mm receiver aperture and about 10 dB and
10.8 dB are needed for H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 with 200 mm receiver aperture. In Fig. 7(b), to achieve
the outage probability of 10
10 , about 77.5 dB and 78.9 dB are needed for H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5, re-
spectively, with 100 mm receiver aperture, about 64 dB and 65.3 dB are required for H ¼ 1 and
H ¼ 5 with 200 mm receiver aperture. Thus, aperture averaging can mitigate the outage per-
formance degradation caused by the increasing hops for the multi-hop FSO system over EW

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Fig. 7. Outage probability versus SNR for multi-hop FSO system under weak condition with H ¼ 1
and H ¼ 5 in fading channels (a) without pointing error and (b) with pointing error.

fading channels [38], but its influence is not obvious over the aggregated fading channels with
pointing error.
Under moderate turbulence condition, the average capacity for H ¼ 1 and H ¼ 5 over EW fad-
ing channels (WL ¼ 2 m,
s ¼ 30 cm) with pointing error considered has been shown in Fig. 8. It
can be found that the average capacity increases with the increase of aperture sizes regardless
of the selected hop number H with and without pointing error considered. In addition, when the
aperture size is fixed, the average capacity degrades as H increases.

7. Conclusion
In this paper, the performance of multi-hop DF-based FSO communication system over an ag-
gregated fading model considering EW distribution and pointing error has been studied. The
PDF and CDF of the aggregated channel gain have been obtained and the closed-form expres-
sions of the end-to-end ABER and outage probability with BPPM modulation are then derived
for this studied FSO system in terms of Meijer's G-function. Combined with MC simulations, the
ABER, outage and average capacity performances of this system are further investigated and
compared with the case without considering pointing error. The studies show that the mitigation

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Fig. 8. Average capacity versus SNR for multi-hop FSO system under moderate condition with H ¼ 1
and H ¼ 5 in fading channels (a) without pointing error and (b) with pointing error.

effect of aperture averaging is more significant on the ABER and outage performance over the
aggregated channel with the pointing error considered regardless of the selected H. However,
this effect is less notable for restraining the performance deterioration caused by the increase of
hop numbers. In addition, aperture averaging has less influence on the outage probability under
moderate turbulence than that of weak turbulence condition, regardless of the selected H. This
work is applicable for the system design of multi-hop FSO system.

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