An optically preamplified PPM intersatellite system described by a moment‐generating function formulation

An original analysis, facilitated by the use of Chernoff bound techniques, is presented for an optically preamplified satellite PPM system employing 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 noise present. We also compare results with those obtainable from a Gaussian approximation, finding the Gaussian approximation consistently less conservative for the cases considered.