Performance Analysis of Dual-Hop THz Communication Under Foggy Weather

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) communication, a promising technology owing to broad and unoccupied bandwidth for next-generation networks, is expected to support ultra-high data rates. The performance of outdoor THz communication systems can degrade because of adverse foggy weather conditions. Different relaying techniques can be utilized to overcome the destructive effects of foggy channel conditions in the THz band. This study evaluates the performance of dual-hop THz communications under varying levels of fog severity and investigates the impact of different channel and system parameters on communication performance via Monte Carlo simulations. Specifically, the outage performance of a THz-THz dual-hop fixed-gain amplify-and- forward (AF) relaying system with benchmark comparisons is evaluated over $\alpha-\mu$ fading channel in the presence of antenna misalignment. The numerical results show that the dual-hop fixed- gain AF THz system outperforms single-link THz and dual-hop decode-and-forward (DF) THz systems under both foggy and clear weather conditions.