BER Performance of Photon Counting PPM vs. DPSK for Satellite Communications

TL;DR

This paper derives and compares the bit error rate performance of photon counting PPM and DPSK modulations for satellite communications, providing analytical expressions verified by simulations and analyzing their efficiency under realistic conditions.

Contribution

It introduces analytical BER expressions for PPM and DPSK in satellite optical links and compares their performance using realistic parameters.

Findings

BER expressions validated by simulation

PPM and DPSK performance compared under satellite conditions

Discussion on efficiency and practical considerations

Abstract

Expressions for the BER of M-ary PPM & biphase DPSK modulations in the presence of noise are derived using analytical, statistical methods. The PPM expression is verified via Poisson statistics based simulation. BER expressions are then applied to a representative set of receiving telescope & sky spectral radiance parameters in order to assess performance of PPM & DPSK relative to one another. Finally, efficiency & additional considerations are discussed.