Block error rate estimation for wireless optical communication links over strong turbulence channels with pointing errors

Free-space optical communication systems are gaining popularity as a high-capacity, cost-effective and license-free wireless technology, addressing the bandwidth demands of existing and future wireless networks. The deployment scenarios of free pace optical links usually concern secure, fast and reliable connections. Thus, in this work, the performance of optical wireless communication systems is studied in terms of the average block error rate which constitutes a very significant metric for their reliability. The optical signal transmission is assumed to be hampered by the joint effects of strong atmospheric turbulence, modeled by the Negative Exponential and the pointing errors effect which affects the alignment between the transmitter and the receiver. Accurate closed-form expression for the evaluation of the average block error rate is obtained, including the aforementioned effects, while finally the corresponding numerical results, for realistic optical wireless links, are presented.