Anisoplanatism in Airborne Laser Communication

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-7-2008

Abstract

Airborne laser-communication systems require special considerations in size, complexity, power, and weight. We reduce the variability of the received signal by implementing optimized multiple-transmitter systems to average out the deleterious effects of turbulence. We derive the angular laser-beam separation for various isoplanatic and uncorrelated (anisoplanatic) conditions for the phase and amplitude effects. In most cases and geometries, the angles ordered from largest to smallest are: phase uncorrelated angle (equivalent to the tilt uncorrelated angle), tilt isoplanatic angle, phase isoplanatic angle, scintillation uncorrelated angle, and scintillation correlation angle (πœƒπœ“π‘–π‘›π‘‘>πœƒπ‘‡π΄>πœƒ0>πœƒπœ’π‘–π‘›π‘‘>πœƒπœ’π‘) . Multiple beams with angular separations beyond πœƒπœ’π‘ tend to reduce scintillation variations. Larger separations such as ΞΈTA reduce higher-order phase and scintillation variations and still larger separations beyond πœƒπœ“π‘–π‘›π‘‘ tend to reduce the higher and lower-order (e.g. tilt) phase and scintillation effects. Simulations show two-transmitter systems reduce bit error rates for ground-to-air, air-to-air, and ground-to-ground scenarios. Abstract Β© OSA.

Comments

Β© 2008 Optical Society of America. Users may use, reuse, and build upon the article, or use the article for text or data mining, so long as such uses are for non-commercial purposes and appropriate attribution is maintained. All other rights are reserved.

Published under the terms of the under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement and OSA's open access policies.

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[*] Author J. Louthain was an AFIT PhD candidate at the time of this publication.

Source Publication

Optics Express

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