1402
8, AUGUST 2005
Free-Space Optical MIMO Transmission
With Q-ary PPM
Stephen G. Wilson, Senior Member, IEEE, Maïté Brandt-Pearce, Senior Member, IEEE, Qianling Cao, and
James H. Leveque, III
Abstract—The use of multiple laser transmitters combined
with multiple photodetectors (PDs) is studied for terres-
trial, line-of-sight optical communication. The resulting mul-
tiple-input/multiple-output channel has the potential for combat-
ting fading effects on turbulent optical channels. In this paper, the
modulation format is repetition -ary PPM across lasers, with
intensity modulation. Ideal PDs are assumed, with and without
background radiation. Both Rayleigh and log-normal fading
models are treated. The focus is upon both symbol-/bit-error
probability for uncoded transmission, and on constrained channel
capacity.
Index Terms—multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) pro-
cessing, optical communication, optical modulation/demodulation.
I. INTRODUCTION
S HORT-RANGE line-of-sight (LOS) optical links have the
potential for providing high-bandwidth access to a larger
wired network, or for linking intranets within corporate cam-
puses [1], [2]. Such optical transmission, often called free-space
optics (FSO), is attractive for several reasons. First, optical
beams are very directive, with beamwidth on the order of 10
mrads, and thus spatial isolation from other potential interferers
is maintained, contrasting with microwave frequency solutions.
This narrow beamwidth is, of course, coupled with high optical
gain, and this permits very-high-data rates with modest power
over links of perhaps 1 km. Optical transmission is unlicensed,
and only must subscribe to safety standards for potential
eye damage. In this regard, use of infrared wavelengths, in
particular 1.55 m, is advantageous, since eye hazards are
less problematic, and a large technology base exists from the
fiber-optic world. Finally, infrastructure issues are minimal,
and such links are relatively easy to reposition as needs change.
A recent survey of the technology is provided in [1].
Two primary challenges are attached to free-space optical
communication. First, the narrow beamwidth implies the need
for careful pointing, and perhaps a need for active pointing and
tracking mechanisms to combat building sway, etc. Second is
the need to combat link fading due to scattering and scintilla-
tion. Even in clear sky conditions, links may experience fading
due to inhomogeneities of the index of refraction in the optical
Paper approved by I. Andonovic, the Editor for Optical Networks and De-
vices of the IEEE Communications Society. Manuscript received September 15,
2003; revised May 15, 2004. This work was supported by the National Science
Foundation under Grant CCR-0208763. This paper was presented in part at the
Asilomar Conference on Signal Processing, Pacific Grove, CA, November 2003.
The authors are with Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 USA (e-mail: sgw@vir-
ginia.edu; mb-p@virginia.edu; qc4d@virginia.edu; jhl3e@viginia.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCOMM.2005.852836
0090-6778/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO.
beam; one may view these pockets of inhomogeneity as refrac-
tion zones that distort the phase front of the optical field, leading
to interference patterns in space at the detector’s location. Sur-
veys of optical-propagation effects are found in [3]–[5].
To address both challenges, we consider the use of (nonco-
herent) optical arrays, analogous to the use of antenna-array
technology for microwave systems, as a means of combatting
fading. Specifically, we envision separate lasers, assumed
to be intensity-modulated only, together with photodetectors
(PDs), assumed to be ideal noncoherent (direct-detection) re-
ceivers. The sources and detectors are physically situated so that
the fading experienced between source–detector pairs is statis-
tically independent, and thus, diversity benefits can accrue from
the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel. Obviously,
the assumption of independence may not be valid, depending
upon the spacing of the devices, and on the nature of the fading.
For example, a cloud or fog bank that fills most of the link will
obviously induce large fades on all source–detector pairs. Al-
ternative means of operation in such environments must be con-
sidered.
The multiple-source, multiple-detector arrangement also
helps at least indirectly with the pointing issue, as follows. A
horizontal rooftop transmit/receive array will experience cyclo-
stationary fading instead of total pointing loss in the presence of
substantial sway. Another obvious means to mitigate pointing
problems is to widen the optical beamwidth (at the cost of
increased transmit power), which, in turn, allows wider spacing
of detectors, and therefore, the independent fading assumption
becomes more supportable.
Readers familiar with wireless technology research in recent
years know of the great interest in the use of transmit and receive
antenna arrays, combined with space–time coding, to gain an in-
crease in channel capacity and diversity gain against fading. In
fact, that research has inspired our current interest here. Though
we also propose a MIMO solution to the optical problem, sev-
eral aspects are different. First, the MIMO channel-input sym-
bols are not complex numbers, but nonnegative, real intensities.
Similarly, the channel output is not complex, but nonnegative
and real. Furthermore, the noise mechanisms are quite different;
instead of additive complex Gaussian noise, the signal-depen-
dent shot noise of optical communication becomes the limiting
factor in high-performance systems. As will be developed later,
the MIMO model is one in which
(1)
is the effective mean parameter vector for the Poisson random
vector at the channel output, is the average number of photo-
WILSON et al.: FREE-SPACE OPTICAL MIMO TRANSMISSION WITH -ARY PPM
Fig. 1. Atmospheric optical MIMO system model.
electrons counted per pulse per laser at one PD for a nonfading
channel, and is an matrix of path attenuations rep-
resenting the fading channel, is the nonnegative real vector
of inputs to the bank of lasers, and is the mean vector at-
tached to background radiation plus PD dark current. Related
work on MIMO optical communication has been reported by
Haas et al. [6], though this dealt with heterodyne optical com-
munication, a more expensive and difficult solution to the op-
tical fading problem. Shin et al. [7] have also treated the problem
we consider here, but with emphasis strictly on receiver diver-
sity.
The paper is organized as follows. Section II develops the
system model and presents the assumptions regarding laser sig-
naling, photodetection statistics, and link fading. In Section III,
symbol-error probability (SEP) and bit-error probability (BEP)
for repetition -ary pulse-position modulation (QPPM) trans-
mission is formulated and analyzed for four cases: 1) no back-
ground radiation/no fading; 2) no background radiation/fading;
3) background radiation/no fading; and 4) background radia-
tion/fading. It is shown that the use of MIMO systems provides
a performance gain, attributable to both transmit and receive di-
versity, for a fixed total transmitter power. The rate in bits/vector
is, however, in this case bounded by , independent of
. In Section IV, we present a channel-capacity analysis for the
repetition QPPM system, focusing upon the outage capacity for
quasi-static fading channels.
II. SYSTEM MODEL
Fig. 1 depicts a block diagram of the physical system under
study. laser sources, all pointed toward a distant array of
PDs, are intensity-modulated by an information source. The
laser beamwidths are narrow, but sufficiently wide to illuminate
the entire PD array. For example, if the half-power beamwidth
is 10 mrads, the half-power spot size at distance 1 km has diam-
eter 10 m. The optical path pairs may experience fading,
and we designate as the amplitude of the path gain (field
strength multiplier) from source to detector . The aggre-
gate optical field is detected by each PD, assuming an ideal
photon-counting model with a typical quantum efficiency.
In the Appendix, a single-channel link analysis is included to
suggest typical link parameters. Though the transmission rate is
rather flexible, we have in mind systems sending in the range of
100 Mb/s. The Appendix shows that with the chosen parameters
1403
and rate 100 Mb/s, the expected number of detected photoelec-
trons per slot is on the order of 300 in either binary or quaternary
PPM. Though this is more than adequate for the desired perfor-
mance with the ideal photon-counting model, fading and other
parameter choices could make this number much smaller.
We next present specific details regarding the transmitter,
channel, and receiver for this optical MIMO model.
A. QPPM Modulation
Earlier studies for optical space communication have shown
that QPPM is an energy-efficient and readily implemented
modulation choice for optical communication [8]–[10]. In this
method, a signaling interval of length is subdivided into
slots, each of length , and a digital message
comprised of bits is sent by pulsing the laser in one
of these slots. We assume that during the designated slot, the
laser power, measured at the receiver after all link losses, is a
constant watts. Thus, represents the peak power, and the
received optical energy per symbol is
joules. This can be related to the energy per information bit by
. The average power, when of interest, is
watts.
QPPM is advocated here over a simpler binary on–off mod-
ulation for another reason; the receiver does not require careful
threshold adjustment that tracks the received power level to
make optimal decisions.
Gagliardi and Karp [8] conclude that under a total energy con-
straint, the optimal intensity pattern over slots is, in fact, that
of PPM, i.e., fully on or fully off. They have studied the de-
tection efficiency of QPPM for a single source/single detector
channel, with and without background radiation. They also con-
clude that for a fixed , and for no background radiation,
is optimal in minimizing SEP. On the other hand, for high
background radiation, large is preferred, since increasing
shortens , thus reducing the mean number of background pho-
tons per slot. A different set of conclusions is reached, however,
if the comparison is made in terms of energy per bit; then we find
that larger is always superior, and in the case that background
radiation vanishes, we find that by letting become arbitrarily
large, the energy per bit can decrease to zero while achieving
any fixed BEP. The efficiency comes at the expense of large peak
power, however, as well as large spectrum occupancy and addi-
tional synchronization difficulty with large-alphabet PPM.
1404
To exploit the possibility of combating fading in optical links
by use of multiple transmitters and/or receivers, we propose
the following transmission setup. A -ary message is sent by
simultaneously pulsing the same slot on the lasers, called
repetition QPPM. The symbol interval remains at , and the
system communicates bits per seconds, as it would
for a single-laser system.
For fairness of comparison, we assume that the power avail-
able to a single-laser system is shared among the lasers, and
so as above is the power presented to one PD by all lasers
together. (This is the standard means of comparison in radio fre-
quency (RF) MIMO analysis as well.) Of course, using mul-
tiple lasers is one way to increase total radiated power with con-
strained laser power; however, we fix the total power (and en-
ergy) irrespective of .
B. Laser Modeling
First, consider a true free-space medium. Each laser pro-
duces an electric field in the vicinity of the receiver plane during
the on-slot interval of the form
(2)
which is a polarized field with center frequency and residual
phase modulation . (We ignore the small unintended
amplitude modulation attached to physical-laser signals, often
called the relative intensity noise; the spatial dependence and
the polarization of the electric field has also been temporarily
suppressed.) The field amplitude is related to the electro-
magnetic flux density by , where is the wave
impedance of the medium, 377 in free space. Received power
then is normally calculated by , where
is the receiving aperture, assuming that the field intensity is
constant across the aperture.
Though it is indicated that the lasers have the same center fre-
quency , real lasers manufactured to operate at a certain wave-
length, say 1.55 m, will have inevitable frequency offsets of
at least 0.1% due to cavity tolerances, and any such frequency
offsets, which amount typically to tens of gigahertz, can be sub-
sumed into the processes.
Following Saleh [11], we represent the bandpass signal of the
received field from laser by its complex envelope , which, for this distribution, can be shown to equal S.I.
where we have now recognized that the field has a spatial and
temporal variation. That is, we write
(3)
For a single laser field, then, . In a free-space
medium with lasers, the fields would superpose at a given PD
surface to produce the composite field, with complex envelope
. random variable, or chi-squared with two degrees of freedom.
It is emphasized that the laser sources are not coherent,
since their phase processes are independent. (An alternative that
we do not consider here is to use a single laser with QPPM and
beamsplitting optics to produce coherent optical sources.)
Depending on one’s perspective, the composite complex enve-
lope can be modeled as either a random process (in time and
space), or a deterministic signal. In either case, it is important to
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 8, AUGUST 2005
realize that the complex envelope has a bandwidth on the order
of 100 GHz, assuming a typical linewidth on the order of 1 nm.
This impacts the modeling of the PD statistics, as shown below.
C. Channel Modeling
Though we assume an LOS path exists between the transmit
and receive array, the transmitted field from a single laser will
propagate through an atmosphere and may experience several
effects. First, electromagnetic scattering from water vapor and
other molecules causes a redirection of the optical energy, with
corresponding loss of signal power at the receiver. Normally,
this is only a significant effect if the water vapor content (and
drop size) becomes large, or if substantial haze conditions exist.
A second phenomenon is refraction on a more macroscopic
scale. Here, small regions of density inhomogeneity in the
atmosphere, due to pressure and/or temperature gradients, create
a nonuniform index of refraction throughout the medium. This
is especially prominent on optical links parallel to and near the
ground. Even though these regions can be treated as lossless,
the aggregate field received at some point in the plane of
the PDs becomes a random variable. This field strength is a
function of space and also time, due to assumed turbulence
of the medium.
Several models exist for the aggregate amplitude distribu-
tion,1 though none is universally accepted, since the atmospheric
conditions obviously matter. Most prominent among the models
are the log-normal model and the Rayleigh model2 [12], and
we adopt these here. In the log-normal model, the amplitude
of the random path gain can be written as , where
is normal with mean and variance . Thus, the loga-
rithm of the field amplitude-scale factor is normally distributed.
(This also means that the optical intensity, proportional to ,
is log-normally distributed.) So that the mean path intensity is
unity, i.e., , we require . The scintillation
index (S.I.), a measure of the strength of atmospheric fading,
known to information theorists as the “amount of fading” [13],
is defined as
S.I. (4)
. Typical values appearing in the literature are S.I. in the range
of 0.4–1.0.
Rayleigh fading emerges from a scattering model that views
the composite field as produced by a large number of nondom-
inating scatterers, each contributing random optical phase upon
arrival at the detector. The central limit theorem then gives a
complex Gaussian field, whose amplitude is Rayleigh. In this
case, the random intensity is a one-sided exponential
We again normalize so that , giving S.I. for the
Rayleigh case, though the distribution is quite different from the
log-normal case, especially in the small-amplitude tail. Fig. 2
1The distribution of the phase is not important, since in the noncoherent de-
tector described, the phase of the field is lost.
2The Rayleigh case is the limiting version of a more general Rician model,
also advocated as a fading model similar to the log-normal case.
WILSON et al.: FREE-SPACE OPTICAL MIMO TRANSMISSION WITH -ARY PPM
Fig. 2. Log-normal and Rayleigh pdfs.
shows probability density functions (pdfs) for the Rayleigh and
log-normal cases with two typical values of S.I. In particular, no-
tice the Rayleigh model has a much higher density in the low-
amplitude region, leading to a more severe impact on system
performance.
In addition to the marginal distribution models, we assume
that the spatial coherence distance of the field at the detector is
large, relative to the size of one detector (on the order of a cen-
timeter diameter), but that the field is independent across detec-
tors. Spatial coherence distances in the turbulent atmosphere are
reported to range between 10 cm and 1 m in [3]. Thus, for de-
tectors spaced on the order of 1 m, we can model the received
field as spatially constant (though random) over any one detector
aperture, but still have the path gains from any one source to var-
ious detectors as independent.
When considering the scattering and refraction in the channel
as a multipath medium,3 we should also consider the delay
spread of the channel. This delay spread is assumed to be much
smaller than the length of a typical symbol interval, yielding
the flat (or nonfrequency-selective) fading model. Recall that in
free space, 10 ns corresponds to about 3 m, and differential path
delays in a ray model of the channel should be much smaller.
Finally, we make a slow-fading approximation, based on the
fact that turbulence and scattering effects have a correlation
time that is long, compared with the typical symbol duration.
These assumptions mean that we can view the channel as
“frozen” over the duration of a symbol or even a codeword of
many symbols.
D. Optical Detection
The PD analysis is based on a semiclassical treatment of pho-
todetection, where the incident field is viewed as a wave, and
this wave produces a modulated Poisson point process of photo-
3The multipath is “within the beam,” as opposed to arising from scatter from
objects at a significant angle.
1405
electrons that contribute to the detector current at the output. The
relevant theory is summarized here, with further details found in
[11] and [14].
First, consider the case of ideal, unfaded links, each with nor-
malized gain 1 between source–detector pairs. The aggregate
electromagnetic field at detector is
(5)
where is the complex envelope of the field at detector
, supplied by source . The scalar field intensity , de-
fined as the magnitude squared of the composite electric field, is
thus a time-varying quantity, due to incoherence of the sources.
This time-varying intensity modulates on a short time scale the
rate of the Poisson point process, forming a doubly stochastic
Poisson process. The rate , where the in-
tegral is spatially over the area of the PD, and is the quantum
efficiency of the PD, typically in the range of 0.3–0.8. The PD
output current is
(6)
where is an elementary current pulse due to a photoelec-
tron creation, having integral , the charge of an electron, and
are occurrence times associated with the Poisson process.
Each PD forms integrals of its photodetected current over
slots. These integrals will be random variables (though not
Poisson variables, in general). Neglecting the possibility that a
current pulse might overlap a slot boundary, we can just as well
focus upon the random number of counts in the various slots.
The conditional probability mass function for the number of
counts in an interval , given the optical intensity, is [11]
(7)
In general, finding the count distributions needed for error-prob-
ability calculation requires study of the distribution of the
stochastic current integrals. Saleh shows, however, that in two
cases (the fully coherent field case, and the wideband, or many
modes, case), the count distribution reverts to the classical
Poisson model, with an effective count parameter given by
the mean intensity integrated over space multiplied by the
slot duration. We invoke the second case, justified since the
composite field’s bandwidth is orders of magnitude wider than
typical .
In summary, if we designate the total incident power (spatial
integral of the field intensity) at one PD as watts, the effective
count parameter of the Poisson count variable is
photoelectrons/slot. (8)
In addition to the desired signal, we presume the presence of a
background optical field, again one whose bandwidth is wide,
1406
and the effective count parameter due to the background field is
denoted as . This is related to the total incident background
power on one PD, , by
photoelectrons/slot. (9)
(This can also include a contribution due to “dark current.”)
Thus, the slot in which a pulse is sent will be said to have a
Poisson count distribution with mean parameter , while
no-signal slots will be Poisson with mean parameter .
Next, suppose we incorporate fading into the statistical de-
scription. Fading does not affect the background radiation, by
assumption. However, the count parameter for the th detector
in the “on” slot, conditioned on a set of fading variables
, is now , where is defined as
above in the absence of fading. The division by accounts for
the power sharing among lasers, in order that the total laser
array’s power is constrained.
The Poisson variates are conditionally independent from slot
to slot (the independent increments property), and across de-
tectors. We designate the collection of counts by
. It is helpful to view this as
an matrix of integers. The vector of parameters of the
Poisson observations for each slot were written in (1), showing
the similarity of the FSO MIMO channel and the RF MIMO
problem.
The log-likelihood function for the Q-vector received by PD
can be written
pulse in slot
(10)
Eliminating common bias terms not depending on , and using
the assumption that the channel gains are independent across
PDs, we find that the maximum-likelihood (ML) detector, given
the channel-fading matrix, chooses
(11)
that is, forms weighted sums of column counts and decides in
favor of the largest.
A simpler special case of this rule applies for the case of
equal-gain (nonfading) links, where we can merely form the
column sums and decide in favor of the largest. This holds both
with and without background radiation. When fading is present,
i.e., are not all equal, but there is no background radia-
tion, column sums over the received matrix are also sufficient for
optimal decision. Only when fading and background noise are
both present should the optimal combiner employ the channel
gains, if known. We instead adopt equal-gain combining (EGC),
even for this last case, for two reasons. First, it may be prob-
lematic to monitor the channel gains, requiring some training,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 8, AUGUST 2005
at least. Second, we have found by simulation that the optimal
combiner only slightly outperforms the EGC, mirroring results
for RF diversity combiners. In summary, in all cases below, we
form column sums
(12)
and choose in favor of the largest. Ties are broken in any fair
manner.
III. ERROR-PROBABILITY ANALYSIS
We consider four cases: with or without channel fading, and
with or without background radiation.
A. No Fading, No Background Radiation
First, consider the case of negligible background radi-
ation and equal-gain links, i.e., almost surely,
, . With no loss of generality, as-
sume that each laser sends energy in slot 1. The only possibility
for decision error is that each detector registers zero counts in
time slot 1, since the other slots register zero counts by assump-
tion . By the Poisson property and independence, we
have SEP
(13)
since tie-breaking errs with probability . It is conve-
nient to consider the BEP, which for QPPM is
(14)
This says that for a fixed total symbol transmitter energy, the
probability of bit error is independent of , i.e., there is no
phased-array gain attached to the multiple sources, since these
are noncoherent sources. The effective received power does in-
crease, however, with , which can be interpreted as the effect
of increasing receiving aperture size, or increasing the optical
gain.
Moreover, the BEP is independent of for a fixed energy per
symbol. However, as increases for a fixed bit rate, the peak
power must increase as to maintain fixed energy per
symbol.
On this same theme, we may wish to focus upon the re-
quired energy per bit needed to achieve a given . Since
, we have that the required can decrease
as , and, in fact, an arbitrarily small can achieve any
small , as . This, of course, presumes no background
interference, and supposes unlimited peak power, so that all
the symbol energy can be collapsed into a vanishingly small
time interval. This result echoes the result of Pierce [10] for
single-source/single-detector cases.
The SEP is shown in Fig. 3 using the solid line-type, versus
, where we have assumed a quantum efficiency
. As a calibration point, joules corresponds to
about 80 photoelectrons/symbol. In Fig. 3 we assume ,
WILSON et al.: FREE-SPACE OPTICAL MIMO TRANSMISSION WITH -ARY PPM 1407

Fig. 4. SEP with varying M , for Q = 2, N = 1, and no background noise,

Fig. 3. SEP, Q = 2, M = N = 1, log-normal fading varying S.I., no for Rayleigh and log-normal fading with S.I. = 0:4.
background noise.

and , but rescaling is easy following the above is a function of total transmitter power, number of lasers, and the
discussion. fading distribution. Fig. 3 presents results for log-normal fading
for varying values of S.I.
B. Fading, No Background Radiation The average error probability can be computed in closed form
for the case of Rayleigh fading, and the result is
The primary interest here involves the impact of fading. The
analysis above is easily extended by finding the intensity at the
(20)
various detectors, conditioned upon a set of fading variables
. At the th detector, the effective count parameter for
the correct slot is . Define the random
This reveals that for any given , the error probability ex-
matrix with th element , and realizations denoted
hibits diversity order , i.e., the slope on log-log coordinates
. The probability of zero counts in slot 1 at detector is
is . However, there is an energy-division penalty in this
case, not seen in the no-fading case, that penalizes the efficiency
slot 1 (15) of adding more sources. Fig. 4 illustrates this for the case of
and various . The diversity gains are quite large in the
and by independence, the probability that all slot-1 counts are Rayleigh fading regime, and the slopes of the curves validate
zero becomes that full transmit diversity is obtained. Note that this diversity
has been obtained without coding across transmitters, which is
all slot 1
not possible in the RF channel case. The fading channel in the
(16)
FSO system is not as detrimental, in that all paths are additive,
If the path gains are independent and identically dis-
never able to produce destructive interference due to the all-pos-
tributed, the average symbol error becomes
itive nature of the signal. Diversity, therefore, comes automati-
cally by adding additional independent paths. The diversity im-
provement afforded by multiple sources is more modest for the
(17) log-normal case. In particular, at , use of
Converting to BEP again saves about 5 dB in total power (or cuts the required margin by
5 dB) over .
Fig. 5 shows the advantage of using multiple receive sensors
(18) in a log-normal faded channel. Notice that adding detectors im-
proves efficiency due to larger total aperture, and also by aper-
where ture averaging of the fading variation. This latter effect is the
diversity effect we are seeking. The advantage is not as great
(19) as in Rayleigh-faded RF systems, giving a similar slope in the
versus plot for different . The optical Rayleigh channel
1408 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 8, AUGUST 2005

Fig. 6. BEP for unfaded channel varying the bit rate, for a fixed background
noise power P , with M = N = 1, for Q = 2 and 8.
Fig. 5. SEP with varying N , for log-normal fading with S.I. = 0:4, Q = 2,
M = 1, and no background noise.

does allow the same full diversity gain (plot not shown for the
sake of brevity) as the RF counterpart. Again, this diversity is
obtained “for free” in the optical case, i.e., without requiring any
(21)
coherent signal combining at the receiver.

This expression can be evaluated numerically, and is not merely

C. No Fading, Background Radiation a function of , but of each and . From the expres-
sion, it is clear how, in this nonfading case, increasing simply
With background radiation and equal-gain channels, the ML increases the received power, and increasing has no effect.
detection rule remains the same as above: form sums and de- Without loss of generality, we can study the case.
cide in favor of the largest. This can be seen directly from (11) The BEP can be related to as above, and is a function
by setting all . Now, however, error may occur in mul- of , , and . In Fig. 6, we show the BEP for
tiple cases, namely, if any of the wrong slots have exceeding for as a function of for
the correct slot; if ties occur, even multiple ties, we break ties fixed background power and several bit rates. Here, we reach
arbitrarily. Thus, the SEP is the probability that any , slightly different conclusions regarding the proper choice of
exceeds plus times the probability that exactly than in the no-background noise case. For fixed , the BEP de-
counts, including , are tied, and all others are smaller. Let creases with increasing , effectively because the slot duration
represent the average number of signal counts in and decreases, and the mean integrated background count is smaller,
be the average number of counts due to background radiation while the signal count mean remains unchanged.
in the other slots. Gagliardi and Karp [8] have derived an exact
series expansion for the SEP for the single-sender/single-re- D. Fading, Background Radiation
ceiver case. A somewhat simpler and more general result fol-
lows by assuming that all ties are broken in the wrong direction, For this most general case, the optimal detector is as described
an approximation that is steadily better as the signal power dom- by (11). We propose instead a more realistic design of simply
inates the background. The probability of correct decision is the summing over the received PD counts for each time slot as was
probability that all , are smaller than , plus a optimal for the cases presented above. Channel estimation at the
small tie-breaking correction. Ignoring this, we obtain an upper receiver is thereby avoided in exchange for a small performance
bound on error probability penalty.
Analysis follows readily, though no simple expression
emerges for the SEP. The development follows case 3,
all except that now we condition on the fading variables
, then average. Again is Poisson with param-
eter , while the remaining are
Poisson with parameter .
WILSON et al.: FREE-SPACE OPTICAL MIMO TRANSMISSION WITH -ARY PPM 1409

which case, a first concern is the channel capacity of the optical

MIMO channel. In this section, we study the capacity for both
nonfaded and faded cases, but without background radiation, for
simplicity.
First, consider a single-sender, single-detector situation using
QPPM, with no background radiation. Let be the (random)
vector of counts for the slots. The mutual information be-
tween the input symbol and is
. The entropy (uncertainty) of , conditioned on ,
is 0 if . If , there are equally likely possibilities
for , so . This yields

slot 1 sent
(23)

Mutual information is maximized when the input symbols are

equiprobable, yielding a capacity .
On a fading channel under equally likely symbols, this becomes

(24)
Fig. 7. SEP for log-normal fading (S.I. = 0:4), varying the number of lasers
0
and PDs, for a symbol energy due to background power alone of 170 dBJ.
Notice that with no background radiation, hard decisions with
Then we have, again ignoring tie-breaking cases that may erasures is information-lossless, since the capacity of a -ary
yield correct decisions, (22), shown at the bottom of the page. erasure channel is erasure .
Note that this conditional probability depends on the fading As in the RF case, conditional mutual information is a random
variables only through the random variable , variable on fading channels, and we might be interested in either
and this conditional probability can be averaged with respect to the expected (ergodic) information, called the ergodic capacity,
the distribution for , the sum of independent fading vari- or in the outage capacity. The former is given by
ates. In the case of Rayleigh fading, is chi-square distributed
with degrees of freedom.
Fig. 7 presents performance for binary PPM with log-normal
fading and fixed background radiation for an increasing number (25)
of transmitters and receivers. Comparing with the earlier perfor- but the expectation is just the moment-generating function
mance plots, we clearly see the cumulative degradation imposed (MGF) for , , evaluated at .
by fading and by background radiation. Adding elements to ei- The MGF for the Rayleigh and log-normal cases can be written
ther the transmit or receive side does steepen the slope of the in closed form [11]. For the Rayleigh model, we obtain
versus plot, and therefore, classical diversity is achieved.
There is still a 4-dB gap between the fading and nonfading cases
of the system at . (26)
IV. CHANNEL CAPACITY
An option for improved performance is coding of the -ary which yields ergodic capacity approaching in the strong
input stream, as has been studied, for example, in [15]–[17], in signal regime.

all slot 1 slot 1

slot 1

(22)
1410 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 8, AUGUST 2005

Fig. 8. Ergodic capacity for QPPM, Rayleigh fading.

Fig. 9. Outage capacity for Rayleigh fading, Q and (M; N ) varying.

Now we generalize to sources and detectors. Without

showing the details, we find that

(27)

This follows directly from the fact that the fading variates only
appear in the form within the exponent, and
they are assumed to be independent.
Results are shown in Fig. 8 for ergodic capacity, with and
without Rayleigh fading, for and . Note that
increasing is beneficial, if is constrained. Also, fading
imposes no penalty at low power, but does at large power (rates
near ). Finally, increasing the array size to
closes the gap significantly between nonfaded and Rayleigh-
fading optical links.
For a quasi-static (slow) fading channel, the ergodic capacity
is a somewhat meaningless quantity, and we are usually more
interested in the distribution of conditional mutual information,
and the -outage capacity, i.e., what conditional mutual infor-
mation is achieved with probability . Fig. 10. Outage capacity for Rayleigh fading, Q = 2.
Using , i.e., the Frobenius norm of the matrix
, where , the distribution of is
where is the distribution function for . If we can in-
vert the distribution function for , a closed-form solution for
outage capacity exists, contrary to the RF case.
Fig. 9 shows the 10% outage capacity in bits/symbol for bi-
(28) nary and 8-ary PPM on the Rayleigh channel model, for both
(1,1) and (2,2) configurations. We note significant
(29) reductions in required to obtain a given capacity, as in-
creases and as grows. In Fig. 10, the outage capacity is
shown for binary PPM with growing arrays, again revealing the
(30)
energy savings of MIMO approaches on fading optical channels.
WILSON et al.: FREE-SPACE OPTICAL MIMO TRANSMISSION WITH -ARY PPM
V. CONCLUSIONS AND EXTENSIONS
We have analyzed an optical MIMO system employing
QPPM across sources, together with direct detection. Both
log-normal and Rayleigh-fading models have been treated,
assuming independent fading on source–detector pairs. The
analysis shows the beneficial effects from a diversity standpoint
of multiple sources and detectors, and transmit diversity is
achieved here without additional special coding.
Some aspects of the optical MIMO system here mimic those
of the microwave MIMO systems. Full transmit diversity can be
shown analytically for the no-background-noise case. Even for
the case of normal background radiation, QPPM is still able to
approach the performance of the unfaded case by increasing the
number of transmit antennas.
There are several useful extensions that can be made. First,
in order to increase the throughput with , we will study, in
a forthcoming paper, the use of more general constant-weight
patterns for each laser, relaxing the assumption that each laser
sends in the same (single) slot. Here, diversity versus rate trade-
offs become apparent, but we expect capacity will become larger
than for QPPM.
Another extension involves the use of more realistic detector
models that incorporate the effects of avalanche photodetection
and/or postdetection electronic noise. Optical preamplification
is another possibility that adds its own noise mechanism.
Finally, the assumption of path independence is obviously an
important one, and further investigation of dependent path
gains could be done, as has been studied for microwave MIMO
systems.
APPENDIX
TYPICAL LINK BUDGET
Consider a single-laser/single-PD link, and assume laser
power mw, with a transmit beam angle mrads
(about 0.6 degrees). Also assume the operating wavelength is
1.55 m, the link distance is 2 km, and the receive aperture
diameter cm. Here, we assume operation in a true
free-space environment with perfect alignment of the optics.
At distance from the transmitter, the power flux density is
(31)
and the power intercepted by the receive aperture is
W (32)
If the adopted bit rate is 100 Mb/s, with PPM, the
slot time is 10 ns. The received photons generate photoelectrons
with probability , the quantum efficiency. Assuming perfect
efficiency in this case, the average number of photoelectrons per
slot is
photons (33)
In an ideal photon-counting receiver, this is quite ample to meet
a typical target . For the performance to be strictly
1411
shot-noise limited, a larger power level would be required, even
for very-low-capacitance, low-temperature receivers. Alterna-
tively, an avalanche photodiode can be used.
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[4] S. Karp, R. Gagliardi, S. Moran, and L. Stotts, Optical Channels. New
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[6] S. Haas, J. Shapiro, and V. Tarokh, “Space–time codes for wireless op-
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[7] E. Shin and V. Chan, “Optical communication over the turbulent atmo-
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[8] R. Gagliardi and S. Karp, “ -ary Poisson detection and optical com-
munications,” IEEE Trans. Commun. Technol., vol. COM-17, no. 4, pp.
208–216, Apr. 1969.
[9] J. Lesh, “Capacity limit of the noiseless, energy-efficient optical PPM
channel,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-31, no. 4, pp. 546–548, Apr.
1982.
[10] J. Pierce, “Optical channels: Practical limits with photon counting,”
IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-26, no. 12, pp. 1819–1820, Dec.
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[11] B. Saleh, Photoelectron Statistics. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag,
1978.
[12] D. A. de Wolf, “Strong irradiance fluctuations in turbulent air,” in Proc.
Spring Meeting Opt. Soc. Amer., Tucson, AZ, Apr. 1971, p. 34.
[13] M. K. Simon and M.-S. Alouini, Digital Communication Over Fading
Channels: A Unified Approach to Performance Analysis. New York:
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York: Wiley-Interscience, 2002.
[15] R. McEliece, “Practical codes for photon communication,” IEEE Trans.
Inf. Theory, vol. IT-27, no. 7, pp. 393–397, Jul. 1981.
[16] X. Zhu and J. Kahn, “Performance bounds for coded free-space op-
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Aug. 2002.
Stephen G. Wilson (S’65–M’68–SM’99) received
the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
engineering from Iowa State University, Ames;
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and University
of Washington, Seattle, respectively.
He is currently Professor of Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering at the University of Virginia, Char-
lottesville. His research interests are in applications
of information theory and coding to modern com-
munication systems, specifically digital modulation
and coding techniques for satellite channels, wire-
less networks, spread-spectrum technology, and space–time coding for multi-
path channels. Prior to joining the University of Virginia faculty, he was a Staff
Engineer for The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA, engaged in system studies
for deep-space communication, satellite air-traffic-control systems, and military
spread-spectrum modem development. He is the author of Digital Modulation
and Coding (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995), and over 100 tech-
nical articles on communication system design and signal processing systems.
He also acts as consultant to several industrial organizations in the area of com-
munication system design and analysis, and digital signal processing.
Dr. Wilson is presently Area Editor for Coding Theory and Applications of
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS. He has been recognized for
outstanding teaching with Distinguished Professor awards from the University
of Virginia Alumni Association, the State Council on Higher Education in Vir-
ginia, and the ASEE-Southeastern Section.
1412
Maïté Brandt-Pearce (M’85–SM’99) received the
B.S.E.E., M.E.E, and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engi-
neering from Rice University, Houston, TX, in 1985,
1989, and 1993 respectively.
She worked with Lockheed in support of NASA
Johnson Space Center from 1985 until 1989. In
1993, she joined the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, where she is currently an Asso-
ciate Professor. Her fundamental interests lie in
deciphering stochastic signals with multiple si-
multaneously received components from different sources. This interest has
found applications in a variety of research projects, including spread-spectrum
multiple-access schemes, multiuser demodulation and detection, study of non-
linear effects on fiberoptic multiuser/multichannel communications, free-space
optical multiuser communications, and radar signal processing and tracking of
multiple targets.
Dr. Brandt-Pearce is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, an NSF RIA,
and an ORAU Junior Faculty Enhancement Award. She is a member of Tau
Beta Pi, and Eta Kappa Nu. She is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 8, AUGUST 2005
Qianling Cao received the bachelor’s degree in en-
gineering from Xidian University, Xi’an, China, in
1992.
She is currently a Graduate Research Assistant
with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
She was a Research and Development Engineer with
the Fourth Research Institute of the Ministry of Posts
and Telecommunication, China, from 1992 to 1998,
in the area of microwave communication systems.
From 1999 to 2001, she was with the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore as a
Research Engineer in the area of OFDM systems. Her major research interests
include wireless and optical communication.
James H. Leveque III, photograph and biography not available at the time of
publication.