Performance Evaluation of DVB-t Image Transmission over a MIMO OWC Channel at 650 Nm under Varying Turbulence Regimes

With the convergence of Information, telecom and broadband services, the digital TV broadcast has undergone a drastic change. For 5G and beyond, the Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) is gaining popularity as a distribution technology in access networks. However, OWC channel is undeterministic in nature due to its interaction with the atmosphere. A great deal of effort has been devoted in the existing literature to determine Quality of Service (QoS) performance for broadcast over an OWC channel whereas Quality of Experience (QoE) has been frequently overlooked. With this motivation, a holistic performance appraisal comprising of both QoS evaluation in terms of Symbol Error Rate (SER) and QoE assessment in terms of a visual indicator i.e. Structure Similarity Index (SSIM) is presented for a DVB-t image transmission over an OWC link under different turbulence regimes with Single Input Single Output (SISO) and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems. The results show that the improvements suggested by QoS from designer perspective need not necessarily pertain to quality enhancement at the end user side.