High Speed Laser Optical Comms

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Ian33

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http://spie.org/x114709.xml


.To show the potential and maturity of the technology, we demonstrated a high-rate optical downlink from a fast-flying jetfighter to a German Aerospace Center (DLR) ground station. The maximum speed was 0.7 Mach, and the data rate was 1.25Gb/s. A qualified dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transceiver was used to show compatibility with standard components from fiber communication technology. The experiment was conducted within the framework of the Demonstration of Optical Data link fast (DODfast) project, a collaboration between the DLR Institute of Communications and Navigation, Airbus Defence and Space, and ViaLight Communications. The air carrier was a Panavia Tornado, and the ground station was the DLR's transportable optical ground station (TOGS).


This system caught my eye as I met an very bright young man who assures me that a variant of this design will be the
defacto communications method for future low observable airframes, and that it will be a system of optical Windows to both transmit and receive information placed around the body to give total hemispherical coverage.
 
sublight is back said:
There are already low observable platforms doing laser comms. Just not at gigabits per second. :)

Oh man..... Don't leave it like that! Any hints at all?
 
This video dates to mid 2010. I don't know how small you can shrink the optical transmitter/receiver due to beam divergence/signal-to-noise tradeoffs. A coelostat arrangement with everything tucked into the airframe minus a single gimbaled 4 inch turning flat would be an alternative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOJS_TrYfFo
 
Some years ago I was (mistakenly) looked at by recruiters from a major aerospace org. They apparently found me due to experience with public key cryptography. They somehow assumed I also had experience with laser sat to sat and sat to a/c comms & optics -- which I certainly do not. The only optics I know are straight from the notes of Mr. Newton which I learned as an undergraduate. and I'm rusty. However, they kept calling for many weeks. I hope they found their man. Anyway, it seems clear 0's and 1's are being sent via various wavelengths of laser (I will keep that part private, as I'm guessing the recruiter probably shouldn't have been yapping about it).
 
 
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