Adaptive combining of coherently detected optical PPM signals in the presence of atmospheric turbulence via focal plane arrays

Adaptive combining of experimentally obtained heterodyned pulse position modulated (PPM) signals with pulse-to-pulse coherence, in the presence of simulated spatial distortions resembling atmospheric turbulence, is demonstrated. The adaptively combined PPM signals are phased up via an LMS algorithm suitably optimized to operate with PPM in the presence of additive shot-noise. A convergence analysis of the algorithm is presented, and results with both computer simulated and experimentally obtained PPM signals are analyzed