TY - JOUR TI - SIMO optical wireless links with nonzero boresight pointing errors over M modeled turbulence channels AU - Varotsos, G.K. AU - Nistazakis, H.E. AU - Petkovic, M.I. AU - Djordjevic, G.T. AU - Tombras, G.S. JO - Optics Communications PY - 2017 VL - 403 TODO - null SP - 391-400 PB - Elsevier B.V. SN - 0030-4018 TODO - 10.1016/j.optcom.2017.07.055 TODO - Atmospheric thermodynamics; Atmospheric turbulence; Bit error rate; Cost effectiveness; Errors; Intelligent systems; Modulation; Monte Carlo methods; Optical systems; Turbomachinery, Average bit-error rates; Free space optical communication systems; Modulation formats; Pointing errors; Single input multiple output systems, Optical communication TODO - Over the last years terrestrial free-space optical (FSO) communication systems have demonstrated an increasing scientific and commercial interest in response to the growing demands for ultra high bandwidth, cost-effective and secure wireless data transmissions. However, due the signal propagation through the atmosphere, the performance of such links depends strongly on the atmospheric conditions such as weather phenomena and turbulence effect. Additionally, their operation is affected significantly by the pointing errors effect which is caused by the misalignment of the optical beam between the transmitter and the receiver. In order to address this significant performance degradation, several statistical models have been proposed, while particular attention has been also given to diversity methods. Here, the turbulence-induced fading of the received optical signal irradiance is studied through the M (alaga) distribution, which is an accurate model suitable for weak to strong turbulence conditions and unifies most of the well-known, previously emerged models. Thus, taking into account the atmospheric turbulence conditions along with the pointing errors effect with nonzero boresight and the modulation technique that is used, we derive mathematical expressions for the estimation of the average bit error rate performance for SIMO FSO links. Finally, proper numerical results are given to verify our derived expressions and Monte Carlo simulations are also provided to further validate the accuracy of the analysis proposed and the obtained mathematical expressions. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. ER -