Performance of M-ary pulse position modulation for aeronautical uplink communications in an atmospheric turbulent medium

This paper discusses the bit-error-rate (BER) performance of an aeronautical uplink optical wireless communication system (OWCS) when a Gaussian beam is employed and the M-ary pulse position modulation technique is used in an atmospheric turbulent medium. Weak turbulence conditions and log-normal distribution are utilized. The Gaussian beam is assumed to propagate on a slant path, the transmitter being ground-based, and the airborne receiver is on-axis positioned. Variations of BER are obtained against the variations in the link length, Gaussian beam source size, zenith angle, wind speed, wavelength, modulation order, data bit rate, equivalent load resistor, avalanche photodetector gain, and detector quantum efficiency. It is observed that the performance of the aeronautical uplink OWCS is affected from atmospheric turbulence significantly. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America