The effect of atmospheric turbulence on the performance of the free space optical communications

In free space optical (FSO) communication links, atmospheric turbulence has a significant impact on the quality of a laser beam propagating through the atmosphere. Turbulence results in intensity scintillation, which can severely impair the operation of target designation and FSO communications systems. Two important parameters for describing quality of FSO communications systems are the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the bit error rate (BER). In this paper, using a modified model we analyze the effect of atmospheric turbulence on the SNR and BER for an FSO system in both weak and strong turbulence conditions.