BER performance of free-space optical communication in strong turbulence with pointing errors

This paper investigates BER performance of free-space optical (FSO) communication over strong turbulence channel together with pointing errors effects. Take atmospheric attenuation, atmospheric turbulence and pointing errors into account, a statistical model for the optical intensity fluctuation at the receiver is described. For given weather and misalignment conditions, a closed-form expression is derived for BER performance of FSO communication system. Moreover, the simulation results show that the closed-form expression can provide sufficient precision for evaluating BER performance of FSO communication systems.