Non-line-of-sight ultraviolet communications over atmospheric turbulence channels

Ultraviolet (UV) communication enables non-line-of sight (NLOS) outdoor wireless connectivity and is particularly desirable to relax or eliminate pointing and tracking requirements of infrared links. In the current literature, atmospheric turbulence effects are typically ignored under the assumption of short link distances and clear weather conditions. In this paper, we address the statistical modeling of turbulence experienced in NLOS UV links. We assume that the NLOS link consists of two line-of-sight (LOS) paths each of which experiences log-normal distributed fading. We obtain a closed-form expression for the probability density function of turbulence induced fading. Based on the derived expression, we investigate bit error rate performance for different system configurations. Numerical simulations are further presented to confirm the accuracy of our derivation.