Exact Performance Analysis of THz Link Under Transceiver Hardware Impairments

TL;DR

This paper provides exact analytical expressions for the performance of terahertz wireless links considering hardware impairments, channel fading, and misalignment, offering precise insights into system behavior under realistic conditions.

Contribution

It introduces exact formulas for key performance metrics of THz links with hardware impairments, channel fading, and misalignment, advancing beyond approximate analyses.

Findings

Exact expressions for average SNR, capacity, and BER under impairments.

Asymptotic outage probability and BER show diversity order independence.

Simulations confirm analytical accuracy and highlight impairment effects.

Abstract

Transceiver hardware impairment (THI) is inevitable for high-date rate terahertz (THz) communication. Existing statistical analysis either neglects THI's effect or provides approximate results when analyzing the performance of the THz system combined with channel fading and antenna misalignment. In this paper, we develop exact analytical expressions for the average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), ergodic capacity, and average bit-error-rate (BER) performance of a THz wireless link under the combined effect of $\alpha$-$\mu$ fading channel, zero-boresight pointing errors, and the Gaussian distributed THI. We also derive asymptotic expressions for the outage probability and average BER, which shows that the diversity order of the THz link is independent of THI's parameters. Simulations validate the derived analytical results and demonstrate the impact of the THI parameters on the THz performance.