Multi-Hop Coherent Free-Space Optical Communications over Atmospheric Turbulence Channels

In this paper, we investigate multi-hop relaying as an efficient fading mitigation tool for coherent free-space optical (FSO) systems over atmospheric turbulence channels. We consider an FSO relaying system with decode-and-forward relay nodes and multiple heterodyne receivers with modal compensation. Based on a recently introduced statistical characterization for the combined effects of log-normal turbulence fading and modal compensation, we derive the outage probability and quantify the potential performance improvements through the derivation of diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) and diversity gain. Our outage analysis yields impressive power savings for multi-hop relaying even with a single-relay. In addition, the DMT analysis in practical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ranges demonstrates that multi-hop transmission scheme improves finite-SNR diversity gain throughout the range of the multiplexing gain.