Performance evaluation of decode-and-forward dual-hop asymmetric radio frequency-free space optical communication system

In this study, the error performance and the capacity analysis is performed for the decode-and-forward based dual-hop asymmetric radio frequency-free space optical communication (RF-FSO) system. The RF link is characterised by Nakagami-m fading and the FSO link is characterised by path loss, Gamma–Gamma distributed turbulence and pointing error. For this mixed RF-FSO cooperative system, novel closed-form mathematical expressions are derived for cumulative distribution function, probability density function and moment generating function of the equivalent signal-to-noise ratio in terms of Meijer-G function. Using these channel statistics, new finite power series based analytical expressions are obtained for the outage probability, the average bit error rate for various binary and M-ary modulation techniques and the average channel capacity of the considered system in terms of Meijer-G function. As a special case, the analytical framework can also be obtained for channel statistics and performance metrics of dual-hop mixed Rayleigh–Gamma–Gamma system. Simulation results validate the proposed mathematical analysis. The effects of fading, turbulence and pointing error are studied on the outage probability, average bit error rate and channel capacity of the asymmetric RF-FSO system.