Outage probability analysis of multi-hop free space optical communications over strong turbulence channels

We research the outage probability of multi-hop free space optical (FSO) communications using serial decode-and-forward (DF) relay transmissions. Due to the combined effects of strong turbulence-induced fading, misalignment fading and pass-loss, a statistical model for the optical intensity fluctuation at the receiver is first presented. Next, given weather and misalignment conditions, a closed-form analytical expression of the end-to-end outage probability for serial DF multi-hop FSO communication is obtained. Then, the numerical results show that the serial DF multi-hop transmission is a promising technology to increase the performance of FSO communications. Moreover, the derived analytical expression indicates excellent agreement with the simulation results.