On the Performance Analysis of Higher Order QAM Schemes over Mixed RF/FSO Systems

In this work, the performance of a dual-hop variable gain amplify-and-forward (AF) mixed radio frequency (RF)/free space optics (FSO) system is analyzed in details. As variable gain AF relay network is considered, processing delay results in outdated channel state information (CSI) during amplification at the relay. For general applicability, the RF link is modeled with the generalized Nakagami-m fading. The FSO link is modeled with the Gamma-Gamma distribution which is affected with the atmospheric turbulence and pointing error impairments, and both the intensity modulation with direct detection (IM/DD) and heterodyne detection are employed at the FSO receiver. In this context, analytical expressions of outage probability and ergodic capacity are derived in terms of Meijer-G function and extended generalized bivariate Meijer-G function. For diversity order, asymptotic outage probability expression is also derived. Further, cumulative distribution function based generalized average symbol error rate expressions for various quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) schemes such as hexagonal QAM, rectangular QAM, and cross QAM are derived in terms of Meijer-G function. Furthermore, a detailed comparative study of various modulation schemes is presented and the impact of pointing error, atmospheric turbulence, outdated CSI, and Nakagami-m parameter are highlighted on the system performance. Finally, all the analytical results are verified through Monte-Carlo simulations.