BER for a space uplink laser communication system under an actual optical distortion with a cake-cutting method

A numerical calculating model is proposed for characterizing the BER performance of the detector working among the 2-D asymmetric distorted spot on the effects of atmospheric turbulence under weak turbulent conditions. Based on the isotropy of the beam wander effect, we introduce a beam wander vector to describe the behavior of the detector drifting among the receiving plane. Furthermore, using the cake-cutting method, the overall PDF of the light intensity is approximated by the average PDF of light intensity intercepted by the detector drifting in all different directions. The results demonstrate that the model obtains the overall PDF of the light intensity received by the detector and analyzes the BER performance of the communication system efficiently. Being an extension of the traditional 1-D calculation, our proposed model has important implications for designing the space uplink optical communication system.