Amplitude modulated multipulse PPM for bandwidth-limited optical systems

Optical direct-detection systems have been considered before for high-speed intersatellite links. In this paper, we consider a three-level amplitude modulated multipulse pulse-position modulation (PPM) for use in bandwidth limited direct detection optical systems. Specifically, we investigate the capacity, cutoff rate and error probability of this modulation scheme. This facilitates the evaluation of the bandwidth efficiency of the proposed modulation as compared to regular multipulse PPM, which delivers the same throughput and detection quality under the same average-power constraint. Copyright (c) 2005 AEIT.