Abstract

An averaged threshold receiver is developed for an optical communication system consisting of a symmetric binary, pulse-code modulated transmitter, a lognormal channel, and an array of independent photocounting detectors. When compared to previously described receivers, it is shown to be a much simpler structure to implement and to provide generally lower bit error rates. Probability of error curves demonstrating this improved performance are presented for various combinations of turbulence strength, background radiation level, SNR, number of diversity channels, and, in the newly developed processor, number of bits used for threshold averaging.

© 1977 Optical Society of America

Photocounting Array Receivers for Optical Communication Through the Lognormal Atmospheric Channel. 1: Optimum and Suboptimum Receiver Structures

M. C. Teich and S. Rosenberg
Appl. Opt. 12(11) 2616-2624 (1973)

Photocounting Array Receivers for Optical Communication Through the Lognormal Atmospheric Channel. 2: Optimum and Suboptimum Receiver Performance for Binary Signaling

S. Rosenberg and M. C. Teich
Appl. Opt. 12(11) 2625-2635 (1973)

Heterodyne receivers for atmospheric optical communications

James H. Churnside and Charles M. Mclntyre
Appl. Opt. 19(4) 582-590 (1980)

Optical communications through a dispersive medium: a performance bound for photocounting

James H. Churnside
Appl. Opt. 20(4) 573-578 (1981)

Threshold detection in an on–off binary communications channel with atmospheric scintillation

William E. Webb and Joseph T. Marino
Appl. Opt. 14(6) 1413-1417 (1975)