Performance Analysis of Space-Diversity Free-Space Optical Links Over Exponentiated Weibull Channels

We propose a simple analytical method for evaluating the average bit-error rate (BER) performance of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) free-space optical (FSO) communication systems over independent exponentiated Weibull (EW) channels. We first present an accurate approximation to the probability density function (PDF) of the sum of independent EW random variables corresponding to the EW-distributed FSO channel fading. Then, a closed-form expression for the BER of MIMO FSO systems using ON–OFF keying is derived based on the obtained PDF. The proposed method is validated through comparing the BER results obtained by the analytical calculation and the Monte Carlo simulation.