Emulation and Testbed Prototyping of Laser Beam Propagation Characteristics through Atmospheric Turbulence for Optical Satellite Feeder Links

Abstract

Two classical scenarios in space communications can be examined to evaluate the link performance of free space optical communications (FSO). These scenarios include the downlink and uplink between earth ground stations and near earth geostationary (GEO) satellites, as well as between the earth and spacecraft that are located a significant distance from the earth (i.e., one or more astronomical units (AU) away). Deep space is often defined as being more than 0.01 AU, or around 1,500,000 km, from Earth. In the first part of this analytical research, various practical system characteristics for optical lasers, telescopes, transmitters, receivers, and atmospheric disturbances, including absorption and scintillation, are taken into consideration. The simulation outcomes were compared to significant experimental data from DLR & JAXA’s OICETS/Kirari-Japan to validate the extended simulation model. Additionally, this work will propose a synthetic effects-based optical turbulence generator in order to deeply investigate atmospheric turbulence disturbances in free-space optical communication systems and support the advancement of artificial intelligence processing-based mitigation solutions. Worth mentioning, the initial outcomes and analytical comparisons demonstrate the preliminary viability of the simulation model for the link budget and scintillation estimation for FSO investigations, which can give deep insight into the development of the proposed testbed prototyping, machine learning-based laboratory measurement system, and enhancement possibility for FSO project design and execution for longand medium-term space mission planning.