Abstract
In this paper, we analyze the end-to-end performance of dual-hop free-space optical (FSO) fixed gain relaying systems under heterodyne detection and intensity modulation with direct detection techniques in the presence of atmospheric turbulence as well as pointing errors. In particular, we derive the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in exact closed form in terms of the bivariate Fox's H function. Capitalizing on this cdf expression, novel closed-form expressions for the outage probability, the average bit-error rate (BER) for different modulation schemes, and the ergodic capacity of dual-hop FSO transmission systems are presented. Moreover, we present very tight asymptotic results for the outage probability and the average BER at high SNR regime in terms of simple elementary functions, and we derive the diversity order of the considered system. By using dual-hop FSO relaying, we demonstrate a better system performance as compared with the single FSO link. Numerical and Monte Carlo simulation results are provided to verify the accuracy of the newly proposed results, and a perfect agreement is observed.