On the Performance of Mixed RF/FSO Dual-Hop Transmission Systems

In this work, the performance analysis of a dual-hop relay transmission system composed of asymmetric radio-frequency (RF)/free-space optical (FSO) links is presented. This work is based on the fact that FSO links are cost-effective, license-free and can provide even higher bandwidths compared to the traditional RF links. More specifically, in this work, we build on the cumulative distribution function presented in [1] to derive new exact closed-form expressions for the probability density function, moment generating function, and moments of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio. We then capitalize on these results to offer new exact closed-form expressions for the higher-order amount of fading, average error rate for binary and M-ary modulation schemes, and ergodic capacity, all in terms of Meijer´s G functions. Our new analytical results were also verified via computer-based Monte-Carlo simulation results.