Analysis of link performance and robustness of homodyne BPSK for airborne backbone laser communication system

The high altitude turbulence is described by the “Clear 1” model in terms of refractive-index structure. The outage and Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of airborne communication links under atmospheric turbulence and aero-optics effects of homodyne binary phase shift keying (BPSK) system is deduced in the high altitude turbulence channel, the relation of probability of fade, mean fade time with flight altitude and transmission distance is analyzed, the Bit Error Rate (BER) vary characteristic along with the mean signal noise rate signal noise rate (SNR) of different modulates is discussed in the gamma-gamma turbulence channel. The results show that atmospheric turbulence and aero-optic effects can greatly reduce the SNR that would occur in the absence of optical turbulence, leading in some cases to unacceptable fade levels or BERs. The average SNR is 26 dB for BPSK to achieve a BER of 10−6. A bit error rate of 5.94×10−10 at 200 km propagation distance was achieved employing a homodyne BPSK based modem.