Characterizing Instantaneous Difference between Received Powers at Two Ends of a Bidirectional Optical Wireless Communication Link through Atmospheric Turbulence

Abstract

Abstract. Numerical simulations are used to investigate the statistical properties of the instantaneous difference in the received powers between the two ends of a bidirectional optical wireless communication (OWC) link through atmospheric turbulence. The probability density estimates of the instantaneous difference between the received powers at the two link ends are obtained with various receiver aperture sizes being considered. It is found that asymmetry of turbulence profiles with respect to the path midpoint may incur obvious difference in the received powers between the two link ends. When atmospheric turbulence is distributed uniformly over the propagation path, the probability of the received powers at the two link ends being the same is nontrivial; however, it gets lower as the turbulence becomes stronger. A large enough receiver aperture may result in negligible difference between the received powers at the two link ends.