Multihop communications over CSI-assisted relay IM/DD FSO systems with pointing errors

In this paper, the end-to-end performance of a multihop free-space optical system with amplify-and-forward channel-state-information-assisted relays using intensity modulation with direct detection technique over Gamma-Gamma turbulence fading with pointing error impairments is studied. More specifically, novel closed-form expressions for the moment generating function, the cumulative distribution function, and the probability density function of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are derived in terms of the Meijer's G function. Based on these formulas, closed-form bounds for the outage probability, the average bit-error rate (BER) of a variety of modulation schemes, the moments, and the ergodic capacity are presented. Furthermore, by using the asymptotic expansion of the Meijer's G function at high SNR, accurate asymptotic results are introduced for the outage probability, the average BER and the ergodic capacity in terms of simple elementary functions. For the capacity, novel asymptotic results at low and high SNR regimes are also derived through the moments. All the analytical results are verified via computer-based Monte-carlo simulations.