Ergodic channel capacity of PPM-coded optical MIMO communications under combined effects

Abstract

The ergodic channel capacity of wireless optical multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system with pulse position modulation (PPM) is investigated. The combined effects of atmospheric turbulence, atmospheric attenuation, pointing error and channel spatial correlation are taken into consideration. The expression of ergodic channel capacity is derived, and is further performed by Wilkinson approximation method for simplicity. The simulation results indicated that the strong spatial correlation has the greatest influence on the ergodic channel capacity, followed by pointing errors and atmospheric turbulence. Moreover, the ergodic channel capacity growth brought by space diversity only performs well under independent and weakly correlated channels. Properly increasing the size and spacing of the receiving apertures is an effective means of effectively increasing the ergodic channel capacity.