M-ary pulse position modulation performance in non-Kolmogorov turbulent atmosphere

The performance of atmospheric optical wireless communication systems in terms of the bit error rate (BER) is investigated when a Gaussian laser beam propagating in non-Kolmogorov turbulence is M-ary pulse-position-modulated (PPM). BER variations against the changes in different parameters such as the non-Kolmogorov power law exponent, symbol number, data bit rate, avalanche photodetector gain, equivalent load resistor, detector quantum efficiency, wavelength, turbulence structure constant, and the Gaussian beam source size are analyzed. Making the design of the PPM optical wireless communication system able to operate in a non-Kolmogorov atmosphere will give better BER performance if the parameters are taken into account in line with the trends presented in our results. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America