Multihop IRS-assisted free space optics communication with DF relaying: a performance analysis

Area of Science:

• Optical Communications
• Wireless Communication Systems
• Signal Processing

Background:

• Free Space Optics (FSO) communication offers high bandwidth and data rates but is limited by environmental factors due to its line-of-sight (LoS) nature.
• Radio Frequency (RF) systems face limitations in bandwidth and data rates compared to FSO.
• Existing FSO systems are susceptible to atmospheric conditions and blockages.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and analyze a novel multihop decode-and-forward (DF) relaying-based intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted FSO system.
• To overcome the environmental impediments affecting traditional FSO communication.
• To enhance the reliability and performance of FSO links.

Main Methods:

• Derivation of end-to-end cumulative distribution function (CDF) for output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
• Development of expressions for outage probability (OP) and average symbol error rate (ASER) using multivariate Fox's H-function.
• Performance evaluation through numerical simulations and Monte-Carlo validation.

Main Results:

• The multihop IRS-assisted FSO system demonstrates superior performance over single-hop IRS-assisted FSO and non-IRS multihop FSO systems.
• Outage probability and average symbol error rate are significantly reduced with the proposed system.
• The derived analytical expressions accurately predict system performance.

Conclusions:

• The integration of IRS technology in multihop FSO systems offers a substantial performance improvement.
• The proposed system effectively mitigates the impact of environmental disruptions on FSO links.
• IRS-assisted multihop FSO is a promising solution for robust high-speed wireless communication.