Characteristics of scintillations and bit error rate of partially coherent rectangular array beams in turbulence

► The correlated and uncorrelated superposition RAGSM beams exhibit the different on-axis intensity distribution. ► The on-axis scintillation rises with increasing beamlet number and decreasing separation distance at the nearer propagation distance, but the situation is reversed at the farther propagation distance. ► The uncorrelated superposition beam gives rise to less scintillation than the correlated one. ► The bit error increases with increasing refractive index structure constant of the turbulence and decreasing wavelength, and the array beams exhibit more advantage at the farther propagation distance.