Ground-to-Satellite Optical Link Turbulence Effects: Propagation Modelling & Transmit Diversity Performance

In this paper, the ground-to-satellite optical links and especially optical feeder links are studied. A methodology for the derivation of received power statistics taking into considerations the phenomena that degrade the optical signal and especially the turbulence effects is reported. The methodology is validated in terms of the first order statistics with experimental data from the ARTEMIS bidirectional optical link campaign. Additionally, the small scale transmit diversity technique is employed and examined for the mitigation of atmospheric turbulence for uplink optical transmission. Simulated received power statistics for various transmit diversity scenarios are reported using the validated methodology.