Secrecy performance of FSO communication systems with non-zero boresight pointing errors

Abstract

Free space optical (FSO) communication is a promising candidate for the next generation (5G and beyond) wireless communication systems, due to its merits (i.e. low latency, high data rate, and license-free band, among others). However, atmospheric turbulence (AT) as well as pointing error (PE) are two of the main challenges with FSO communication that affect its performance. Here, the exact closed-form expression of the average secrecy capacity and secrecy outage probability under the composite effect of AT and non-zero boresight PEs is evaluated. For all the regimes of the AT (weak to strong), a generalised Malaga distribution is used to model the channel fading gain of the FSO link. The expressions are generalised and valid for all turbulence, and are applicable for intensity modulation direct detection as well as heterodyne detection techniques.