Impact of Pointing Errors and Fading in a Pre-Amplified Pulse Position Modulation Optical Receiver

We present analytical results on the average bit error probability (ABEP) of an optically pre-amplified pulse-position-modulation (PPM) receiver that operates under fading and pointing errors. The analytical description enables the efficient calculation of the ABEP in Malaga-M, γ - γ and negative-exponential fading for a wide range of modulation orders and noise modes. As expected, a significant power budget gain is initially obtained by increasing the PPM modulation order, however a further improvement requires the optimization of the received beam waist. Finally, the noise modes that enter the receiver negatively affect its operation irrespective of fading and pointing errors.