Laser guide stars for optical free-space communications

Ramon Mata-Calvo; Domenico Bonaccini Calia; Ricardo Barrios; Mauro Centrone; Dirk Giggenbach; Gianluca Lombardi; Peter Becker; Igor Zayer

doi:10.1117/12.2256666

24 February 2017 Laser guide stars for optical free-space communications

Ramon Mata-Calvo, Domenico Bonaccini Calia, Ricardo Barrios, Mauro Centrone, Dirk Giggenbach, Gianluca Lombardi, Peter Becker, Igor Zayer

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10096, Free-Space Laser Communication and Atmospheric Propagation XXIX; 100960R (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2256666
Event: SPIE LASE, 2017, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) performed a measurement campaign together in April and July 2016 at Teide-Observatory (Tenerife), with the support of the European Space Agency (ESA), to investigate the use of laser guide stars (LGS) in ground to space optical communications. Atmospheric turbulence causes strong signal fluctuations in the uplink, due to scintillation and beam wander. In space communications, the use of the downlink channel as reference for pointing and for pre-distortion adaptive optics is limited by the size of the isokinetic and isoplanatic angle in relation to the required point-ahead angle. Pointing and phase errors due to the decorrelation between downward and upward beam due to the point-ahead angle may have a severe impact on the required transmit power and the stability of the communications link. LGSs provide a self-tailored reference to any optical ground-to-space link, independently of turbulence conditions and required point-ahead angle. In photon-starved links, typically in deep-space scenarios, LGSs allow dedicating all downlink received signal to communications purposes, increasing the available link margin. The scope of the joint DLR-ESO measurement campaign was, first, to measure the absolute value of the beam wander (uplink-tilt) using a LGS, taking a natural star as a reference, and, second, to characterize the decrease of correlation between uplink-tilt and downlink-tilt with respect to the angular separation between both sources. This paper describes the experiments performed during the measurement campaigns, providing an overview of the measured data and the first outcomes of the data post-processing.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Ramon Mata-Calvo, Domenico Bonaccini Calia, Ricardo Barrios, Mauro Centrone, Dirk Giggenbach, Gianluca Lombardi, Peter Becker, and Igor Zayer "Laser guide stars for optical free-space communications", Proc. SPIE 10096, Free-Space Laser Communication and Atmospheric Propagation XXIX, 100960R (24 February 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2256666

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available