Performance of Multiple Relay DF NLOS UVC System With CSI Imperfections

Ultraviolet communication (UVC) is emerging as an attractive alternative to the existing optical wireless communication (OWC) technologies. UVC experiences negligible noise on the earth’s surface, and also has the ability to operate in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) mode, thereby making it a perfect choice for outdoor communication. However, due to strong interaction of ultraviolet waves with atmospheric particles, it suffers from a very high path loss and turbulence-induced fading, which limits UVC system’s performance. We consider a decode-and-forward based cooperative relaying technique to improve the performance of NLOS UVC system, and to extend its communication range. We consider the practical case of imperfect channel state information at the receiver and derive outage probability of the system. We also consider impact of elevation angles, receiver field-of-view (FOV), and turbulence strength on the system performance. We compute the relative diversity order of the system and demonstrate its convergence through asymptotic analysis. Next, we obtain the novel expression of probability density function of the end-to-end instantaneous signal-to-noise-ratio. We use single subcarrier intensity modulation employing quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and derive the novel generalized analytical expressions for rectangular QAM, cross QAM, and futuristic hexagonal QAM schemes. We carry out a detailed performance study considering different system configurations and several interesting insights are highlighted, which reinforces UVC as a futuristic OWC technology. Correctness of the derived analytical expressions is confirmed using Monte-Carlo simulations.