We present predicted and experimentally measured gains in communications performance of a laboratory-based, free-space optical communications system through the use of adaptive optics (AO). A commercially available avalanche photodiode detector (APD) is used in the receiver for signal detection. Background noise and atmospheric turbulence field conditions were simulated in the laboratory using an integration sphere and a specially designed heater. At an uncoded bit-error rate (BER) of 0.3, a

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... o 6-dB gain in the received signal power is shown when AO correction is applied in the presence of high background and turbulence. The data stream was a 100-megabits per second (Mbps) pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS), on-off-keying (OOK)-modulated, 1064-nm laser pulse train.