Hybrid polarization-division-multiplexed quadrature phase-shift keying and multi-pulse pulse position modulation for free space optical communication

A new hybrid modulation scheme (PDM-QPSK-MPPM) for free space optical (FSO) communication is proposed in this paper, which is based on the combination of polarization-division-multiplexed quadrature phase-shift keying (PDM-QPSK) and multi-pulse pulse position modulation (MPPM). We describe the transmitter and receiver block diagram and the decoding scheme of proposed scheme, and derive the formulary expressions for symbol-error rate (SER) and upper bound of bit-error rate (BER) in Gamma-Gamma turbulence channel. Performance evaluations and comparisons are implemented through detailed analysis. The numerical results indicate that, under turbulence channel with average power constraint, the proposed hybrid PDM-QPSK-MPPM always offer better BER performance and SER performance than ordinary BPSK and MPPM. In addition, the proposed scheme offers higher bandwidth-utilization efficiency than conventional modulation formats.