AN OPTICALLY PREAMPLIFIED PPM INTERSATELLITE SYSTEM DESCRIBED BY A MOMENT-GENERATING FUNCTION FORMULATION

An original analysis, facilitated by the use of Chernoff bound techniq ues, is presented for an optically preamplified satellite PPM system e mploying a receiver that integrates over a time slot and compares the result with a fixed threshold. At 155-Mbit/s operation we demonstrate a potential receiver sensitivity of 50.7 photons/bit with background n oise present. We also compare results with those obtainable from a Gau ssian approximation, finding the Gaussian approximation consistently l ess conservative for the cases considered. (C) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.