Effects of phase fluctuation and intensity scintillation caused by weak atmospheric turbulence to BER employing distributed antenna array

In free space optical link systems, atmospheric turbulence is a major limiting factor. Atmospheric turbulence will result in both intensity scintillation and phase fluctuation to the laser beam. This paper is based on MZI-DPSK modulation, considered effects of intensity scintillation and phase noise caused by large-scale and small-scale turbulence to BER, and intensity scintillation is satisfy the inverse Gaussian distribution and phase fluctuation is satisfy the Gaussian distribution. We adopt the distributed antenna array receiver technology, study the performance of bits Error Ratio in free-space optical communication through the atmospheric turbulence, and derive the average BER of antenna array as a function of the phase error considering the inner scale and outer scale effects. In order to improve the BER performance, antenna receiver adopts Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) technology. The simulation results show that the phase error has a great impact on the error rate, and the inner scale and outer scale has a negligible impact on the error rate. Using antenna reception can reduce the error rate of the system to improve the performance of the communication system and draw the best sub-antennas number of the antenna array receiver.