MIMO free space optical communication based on orthogonal space time block code

An appropriate coding method that can reduce the error rate of communication system is especially important to the free space optical communication. STBC （space-time block code） is an orthogonal encoding method integrating space domain and time domain. The technology can combat fading effectively and improve error rate performance. In this paper, first, an STBC fit for optical communication with intensity modulation and direct detection （IM/DD） is proposed by combining the orthogonality of the Alamouti space-time code and the QPPM modulation. Then, the error rate performance of the system is analyzed under four cases： with or without channel fading, with or without background radiation. At last, this scheme is confirmed by Monte Carlo approach. It is shown that this method not only realizes the full speed rate transmission, and can improve the error rate performance of the system effectively, but also overcomes the scintillation effect exerted by atmosphere turbulence. When the symbol error probability （SEP） is 2×10^-3, according to the 1× 1 system, the sending power of the 2×1 system is nearly reduced by 3.5 dBJ, and the 2×2 system is nearly reduced by 9 dBJ.