Comparative analysis of aperture averaging & receiver diversity schemes in FSO channel performance under high scintillation regime

High Scintillation is a major problematic issue for Free Space Optical Communication (FSOC) system. Consequently, in this case, the Single Input & Single Output (SISO) optical channel performance has been degraded. To minimise this problem, the FSO system has integrated a number of mitigating strategies. Two methodologies have been discussed in this manuscript: receiver diversity scheme (Single Input Multiple Output) and aperture averaging. In this challenging environmental setting, both methods work effectively. However, the experimental analysis shows that the aperture averaging technique outperforms SIMO and SISO approaches in terms of signal eye pattern, BER, and SNR. Compared to the SISO link, the average Signal to Noise Ratio has improved by 6.67%, 26.7%, and 33.9% for 1 × 2, 1 × 4-based SIMO and Aperture averaging systems, respectively. Reduction of average Bit Error Rate (BER) has been possible 6.19%, 21.2%, and 32.33% for 1 × 2, 1 × 4 based SIMO channels and aperture averaging scheme, respectively, compared with the SISO channel.