Performance Analysis of FSO Communication Systems with Photodetector Multiplexing

In this paper, we carry out a performance analysis of a two-user free-space optical (FSO) communication system with photodetector multiplexing, in which the two users are defined as the primary user (PU) and secondary user (SU). Unlike common single-user FSO systems, our photodetector multiplexing FSO system deploys a shared detector at the receiver and enables PU and SU to send their own data synchronously. We conduct the performance analysis of this FSO system for two cases: (1) in the absence of background radiation, and (2) in the presence of background radiation. Decision strategies for PU and SU are presented according to the two scenarios above. Exact and approximate conditional symbol-error probability (SEP) expressions for both PU and SU are derived, in an ideal channel with no fading. Average SEP expressions are also presented in the no-background-radiation scenario. Additionally, in some particular cases where the power ratio tends to 0.5 or 1, approximate SEP expressions are also obtained. Finally, numerical simulations are presented under different conditions, to support the performance analysis.