Performance analysis of fixed gain AF relay assised mixed RF-FSO links

The end-to-end performance of dual-hop mixed RF/FSO communication systems in a serial relay configuration with fixed gain amplify and forward (AF) scheme over turbulence induced fading channel is presened. We consider that the FSO communicaion system channel is operating over a gamma-gamma distributed fading channel. Since in free-space optical systems fading variance depends on distance beween source and destination terminals, relay-assisted transmission become advantageous due to shorter hop lengths and yields performance improvements. For end-to-end outage probability, average probability of error and average capacity of a dual-hop FSO system, the analytical closed-form expressions are derived in erms of Meijer´s G function. The derived analytical expressions are validated with extensive Monte Carlo simulations.