International Conference on Microelectronics, Communication and Renewable Energy (ICMiCR-2013)

Performance of QPSK Modulation for FSO

Geo-Synchronous Satellite Communication Link
under Atmospheric Turbulence.
Jokhakar Jignesh D.
.

M. Tech (Research), E&C dept., NITK.

Mangalore, India
jokhakarjignesh@gmail.com

U. Sripati

Muralidhar Kulkarni

Prof., E&C dept., NITK

Prof., E&C dept., NITK.

Mangalore, India

Mangalore, India

sripati_acharya@yahoo.co.in

Abstract: In recent years, free space optical (FSO)

communication has gained a considerable interest amongst
the researchers due to certain benefits it has to offer over
RF links such as availability of large unlicensed
bandwidth, high data rates, negligible electromagnetic
interference, ease of installation etc. However the
conventionally used FSO systems use On-Off Keying
(OOK) as the modulation technique. Such a link requires
high levels of transmit power. In this paper, we have
suggested the use of QPSK modulation technique which
allows us to reap the benefits of coherent detection. Our
calculations show that QPSK is more inert to the changes
in atmospheric conditions like temperature, air pressure,
humidity, aerosol concentration etc.
Keywords- FSO, QPSK, Air Pressure, Temperature.

I.

INTRODUCTION

In last few decades, the data requirements for various

applications like Defense, Research, Education, Monetary
services, Entertainment etc has grown exponentially. A major
problematic situation of rapidly depleting usable licensed
bandwidth has risen. Researchers are striving hard to develop
techniques to efficiently an optimally utilize the available
bandwidth. Satellites have moved on to Ka- Band in RF
domain for higher bandwidth. However the data requirements
keep on rising with advent of new technologies like digital
direct to home television, high speed internet requirements,
online video conferencing, online movie streaming at the
theatres etc. Thus, we are in need of communication links
which provide sufficient data rates. One of the techniques to
resolve this problem is Free Space Optical Communication
link. Since, we are moving on to optical domain, the

978-1-4673-5149-2/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

mkuldce@gmail.com

frequencies of the signal lie in THz range which gives high

bandwidth (upto 5-10 GHz).With this high Bandwidth
available, data rates in range of Gbps can be achieved.
With the growing interest in this technology, many systems
are available today implementing OOK modulation technique.
In OOK, a Laser beam is modulated by a data bit stream. If
the data bit is 1, high power pulse is sent and if the data bit is
0, no pulses are sent. OOK has been implemented mainly
because of its extremely less complexity.
However in this paper, we have thrown light on certain
defects in using OOK modulation technique.
To design a wireless optical link for conveying data between a
Geo-synchronous satellite and a ground station, we have
chosen following design parameters:
1)
2)
3)
4)

Probability of Error (BER) = 10

Link margin = 6 dB
Data rate = 3 Gbps
Link Distance= 40000km

The design of this laser communication system is based on the

data provided in [1] which provides a comprehensive
treatment of laser communication systems operating in free
space. Some of this data is empirical/ and or statistical and
cannot be generated theoretically.
II.
SIMULATION PARAMETERS
The following transmitter/receiver parameters have been
assumed for the simulation.
Distance= 40000 km
Wavelength=1550nm
Receiver sensitivity for OOK modulation= 100 photons/bit
Transmitter optical loss( T )= -10dB

International Conference on Microelectronics, Communication and Renewable Energy (ICMiCR-2013)

Receiver optical loss( R ) = -10dB
Transmitter Divergence Angle ( ) = 2.24 10
Transmitter Antenna Gain ( )= = +105dB

similar. Faraday polarization mirrors are used to meet this

requirement [10].

rad

Receiver diameter (D) = 1m

III.

Received Signal

S=

IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS

S+L

Link margin=

i.e. Link margin (dB) = P(received)(dB)-P(required)(dB)

R

P required =
=
(dB) =

-[

(5)

where,
= Required Transmitted power,
= Received Power, N =
Receiver sensitivity (photons/bit), R= required data rate (bps),
h=
Plancks constant=
6.62610 , c= speed of light
wave=310 m/s, =wavelength of light beam employed.
IV.

Polarization Control
Faraday Mirrors

Optical
Hybrid

B
S+jL

(3)

(dB) + ATM (dB) + S (dB) +

(dB) + R (dB)] (4)

Space loss(S) =

S -L

(2)

= +129dB

(dB) +

(1)

Polarization Control
Faraday Mirrors

S -jL

Balanced
Detector
Configuration

Local Oscillator
L=

A= 4
B= 4

cos
sin

ADVANTAGES OF COHERENT DETECTION

The coherent detection technique yields a gain of 10-20dB in

receiver sensitivity [2] (depending on input capacitance of the
detector, ambient temperature and frequency of signal) as
compared to non coherent detection. Another factor affecting
the receiver sensitivity is the quantum efficiency. These
factors result in the variation of the receiver sensitivity gain in
the range of 10dB 20dB.The noise degradation can be
reduced by using Laser diodes emitting signals with narrow
spectral line widths. For this purpose, DFB-LD (Distributed
Feedback laser diodes) or DBR-LDs (Distributed Bragg
Reflector laser diodes) are used. The noise density affects the
signal to noise ratio of the detector, which eventually affects
the gain. For high receiver sensitivities, low spectral linewidth is required. Thus, the use of DFB-LDs and DBR-LDs is
recommended. The Coherent QPSK Receiver is shown in Fig.
1. The detailed explanation of the QPSK receiver is given in
reference [3]. The Balanced Optical Detector configuration
provides additional 6dB gain to the signal. Refer [3]. The
difference in polarization of the received signal and the local
oscillator signal can give rise to imperfect demodulation.
Hence, the polarization of both signals needs to be maintained

Fig.1 Coherent Receiver system

FOR optical QPSK, Bit Error Rate (BER) is given by [4] :
BER=erfc( n

N )

(6)

By substituting BER= 10-9 in equation (6), we get required

=19 photons/bit. The Receiver sensitivity for OOK systems
is 100 photons/bit[1]. From these statements, we conclude that
QPSK has a huge sensitivity gain over OOK. From Equation
(2), we can infer that QPSK requires less power to be received
at the receiver detector to maintain the BER of 10-9 and data
rate of 3 Gbps.
V.

ATMOSPHERIC PARAMETERS EFFECTS

As the signal travels through the turbulent atmosphere, it

undergoes degradation due to atmospheric absorption,
scattering and scintillations. These effects cause random
fluctuations in the signal strength. This effect is termed as
signal fading. The primary cause of scintillation is the random
change in refractive index of the medium due to changes in
atmospheric temperature. Absorption and Scattering are

International Conference on Microelectronics, Communication and Renewable Energy (ICMiCR-2013)

responsible for reduction in power level, whereas Scintillation
is responsible for the probabilistic change in the channel
attenuation. The received signal can be expressed as
following:
Y=h.X+n

... (7)

Where, Y is the received signal power, X is the transmitted

signal power, h is the attenuation and n is the noise power
added during the transmission. The absorption, scattering and
scintillation effects characterize the factor h. `h can be
characterized as a probabilistic parameter whose mean
amplitude depends on the attenuation and scattering effect and
the variance depends on the scintillation effect. h can be
defined as gamma-gamma distributed.[5]
Scattering effect in consideration here is the Rayleigh
scattering due to various scattering components present in the
atmosphere of the earth such as gases, aerosols, dust, fog,
smoke etc. Due to these anomalies present, the light beam is
diverted from its track by an angle called as the forward
scattering angle. As far as the long haul links are considered,
multiple forward scattering takes place. The collective
scattering effect gives us a collective forward scattering angle.
Statistical data shows that this total forward scattering angle
for 1550nm light beam lies between 5 to 11.5 degrees
(0.0872rad to 0.2rad). Upto this range of forward scattering
angles, the scattered beam can be exploited along with the
unscattered beam. The reason for this is multiple forward
scattering. If the scattering angle goes beyond this range, the
beam suffers extremely high losses in power level.
The required transmitted power can now be calculated
considering the Scattering effect by equation (8). The 6dB link
margin is compensated by the required 6dB gain achieved
from balanced optical receiver configuration [3]. The G-APD
gain is included in the calculation.
P=
Where,

P Q
L

GAPD G

...(8)

= Receiver aperture radius=0.75m

GAPD = APD gain = 30dB
= Power gain given to the beam before
G
Transmission.
=

; where =

F = total forward scattering angle

=effective attenuation coefficient= +
=attenuation coefficient

can be considered as the Space Loss attenuation

given by
Here,

.
=scattering coefficient
is the power required to maintain the BER of 10-9.
P

Q=

is 19 for QPSK
Where, R is the data rate i.e. 3 Gbps and
from equation (6). h is the Plancks constant (6.62610-34).
can be considered as optical Rayleigh
The value of
scattering coefficient and can be calculated using equation (9).
[6]
=24

...(9)

Where, N= no. of density of aerosol molecules (

refractive index of the air, = depolarization factor.

; n=

The refractive index(n) is in reality affected by the

temperature (T), air pressure in Torr. (p) and water vapour
pressure in Torr.(f). This dependence is given by [6]
n

5.722

0.0457
10

(10)

Where,
= wave no. (
n = Standard refractive index of air with 330ppm CO .
It can be calculated from equation (11).
(n -1) 10 =

(11)

instead of n in equation
For practical calculations, we use
(9).The value of water vapour pressure can be calculated using
equation (12) [7].
A B
T

f =10 C

... (12)

Where, A= 8.07131, B= 1730.63, C= 233.426

Reference [8] gives the value of depolarization factor .
Hence, the received power will vary with the variations in
Temperature, Air Pressure and Humidity in atmosphere, thus,

International Conference on Microelectronics, Communication and Renewable Energy (ICMiCR-2013)

giving rise to scintillation effects. The effects of fog and
rainfall attenuation [9] were considered and calculations were
performed.

VIII.

RESULTS

VI. SIMULATIONS
Fig. 3 shows the graph of required transmitted power ( ) vs.
atmospheric air pressure plotted using equations (8-12)
considering required receiver power for OOK and QPSK
modulation. The Transmitter and Receiver Losses (10 dB) [1]
were considered in the calculations. It can be observed that
required transmission power for OOK is much larger than
QPSK modulation. It can also be observed from Fig. 3 that as
the temperature (T) increases the required transmission power
to maintain the BER also increases. A major point to be
observed from Fig. 3 is that when temperature of atmosphere
increases from 5 to 25 , the required transmission power at
any value of air pressure increase to a greater extent in OOK
modulation as compared to QPSK modulation.
Consider the air pressure level of 1000 mbar. When the
temperature of atmosphere increases from 5 to 25 , the
required transmission power increases by 750mW (from 4W
to 4.75W) for OOK whereas it increases only by 100mW
(from 600mW to 700mW) for QPSK.
Fig. 4 shows the Graph of required transmission Power
against Temperature of the atmosphere. It can be observed
that Required Transmission power increases with increase in
Temperature as well as air pressure. Consider Temperature (T)
of 25 . As the air pressure rises from 800 mbar to 1050 mbar,
the required transmission power increases by 2.75W for OOK,
whereas, it rises by 350mW for QPSK.

Fig .2 Required Transmission Power vs. Atmospheric

Pressure for Temperature of 5 and 25 including 4dB
Tracking Error Loss.

The Rainfall and Fog attenuation is calculated from Reference

[9]. Fig. 5 shows the plot of Required Transmission Power
considering rainfall and Fog attenuation. The values of
atmospheric parameters like aerosol density and water vapour
pressure is taken from statistical data for a location in north
India (cannot be disclosed).
VII.

CONCLUSIONS

The required transmission power in OOK technique is higher

than QPSK technique. As the temperature or the air pressure
of the atmosphere increases, the required transmission power
also increases to maintain a BER of 10-9 and 3 Gbps data rate.
This variation in required transmission power is much higher
in OOK as compared to QPSK for certain variation in either
temperature or the air pressure. Thus, the effect of
scintillations is more in OOK as compared to QPSK. Thus,
QPSK proves to be power efficient and robust modulation
technique in comparison to OOK.

Fig .3 Required Transmission Power vs. temperature for

Atmospheric Pressure 800mbar and 1050mbar with Tracking
Error Losses of 4dB.

International Conference on Microelectronics, Communication and Renewable Energy (ICMiCR-2013)

[8] Kenneth Cartwright, Edit J. Keminsky. A Simple
Improvement to Viterbi and Viterbi Monomial-Based
Phase Estimators.IEEE GlobeComm06. (2006)
[9] S. Sheikh. Muhammad, P. Kohldorlfer, E. Leitgeb.
Channel modeling of Terrestrial Free Space Optical
Links.
Transparent
Optical
Networks,
2005,
Proceedings of 2005 7th International Conference.
(2005).
[10] AGILTRON 1310/1480/1550 Faraday mirrors
datasheet.

Fig .4 Required Transmission Power vs. Atmospheric Pressure

for Temperature of 5 , 25 and 32 including Fog and
Rainfall attenuation and 4dB Tracking Error Loss.
IX.
REFERENCES
[1] Free-space laser communication performance in the
atmospheric Channel: Arun K. Majumdar, J. Opt. Fiber.
Commun. Rep. 2, 345396 2005 Springer Science +
Business Media Inc. (2005)
[2] John M Senior; Optical fiber communication; third
edition; chpt. 13, coherent and phase modulated systems.
Integrated
[3] Arkady Kaplan, Kobi Achiam LiNB
Optical QPSK and Coherent Detector. ECIO conference
paper (2003).
[4] Tejbir Singh Hanzra, Gurpartap SinghPerformance
of Free Space Optics in BPSK and QPSK communication
systems.
IOSR
Journal
of Electronics
and
Communication Engineering, Vol. 1, Issue 3 (2012).
[5] Murat Uysal, Jing Li, Meng yu. Error Rate
Performance Analysis of Coded Free Space Optical Links
over
Gamma-Gamma
Atmospheric
Turbulence
Channels. Wireless Communication, IEEE Transactions.
(2006).
[6] C. Frohlich, G. Shaw; New Determination of
Rayleigh Scattering in Terrestrial atmosphere. Applied
Optics, Vol. 19, Issue 11, pp. 1773-1775 (2010)
[7] Wikipedia page. Search- Vapour Pressure of Water.