The use of WMC distribution for performance evaluation of APD optical communication systems

In the analysis of the bit-error rate (BER) of an optical communication system with avalanche photodiode (APD) detectors, the Webb, McIntyre, Conradi (1974) distribution has been often used to approximate the APD receiver output statistics. This paper presents new simple and closed form BER expressions as well as an importance sampling technique for optical systems employing APD receivers when the WMC model is used. Comparison of the WMC model with the exact model is also carried out. In particular, it is shown that the WMC distribution is quite accurate and has the advantage of simplicity for both simulation and analysis.