Cooperative relay orbital satellite optical communication under turbulent channels: Performance analysis

Free-space optical (FSO) or laser satellite communication (SatCom) can be enhanced to mitigate turbulent channels by using relay communication, which provides main advantages including lower mass, lower consumption, better throughput, and lower cost. Furthermore, laser SatCom is inherently resistant to jamming, interception, and interference. This letter provides a theoretical and simulation analysis of downlink optical cooperative relay SatCom. The performance analysis for the proposed model is investigated using outage probability (OP) and bit error rate (BER) with intensity modulation direct detection (IM/DD) technique and decode and forwarding (DF) technology. The average aperture radius and operating wavelength are studied to illustrate the impact of the number of relays on the required aperture diameter. Closed forms for OP and BER are derived for the cooperative relay optical SatCom in order to express the results in the form of elementary functions, taking into account the impact of the ideal number of relays, significant design considerations, operating wavelengths, and zenith angles on the overall system performance. The collected findings demonstrate that our cooperative relays outperform both serial and direct link benchmarks for a variety of system characteristics.