Spatial diversity techniques for non-line-of-sight ultraviolet communication systems over atmospheric turbulence channels

Abstract

Rich scattering of ultraviolet signals enables the non-line-of-sight outdoor wireless connectivity and eliminates the line-of-sight requirement of free-space optical links. Besides scattering losses, ultraviolet signals also suffer from the atmospheric turbulence-induced fading. One of the strong fading mitigation techniques is the spatial diversity, which has been extensively studied in the context of wireless radio frequency and infrared networks. In this study, spatial diversity techniques for non-line-of-sight ultraviolet communication links are considered. In particular, multiple-input-single-output (MISO), single-input-multiple-output (SIMO), and multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) non-line-of-sight ultraviolet communication systems are derived. The BER performance of the single-input-single-output (SISO) link is also derived as a benchmark. The accuracy of the derivations is confirmed through Monte Carlo simulations. The results demonstrate the significant performance improvements in spatial diversity schemes over SISO counterparts. The authors further investigate the effect of spatial correlation on the performance of non-line-of-sight ultraviolet links with spatial diversity. They demonstrate that the spatial correlation degrades the performance significantly, and efficient separation between apertures is crucial to achieve the maximum diversity gain.