IRCOMM: spacecraft free-space optical bus development

Meitzler, R.C.; Schneider, W.; Conde, R.F.

doi:10.1109/aero.2005.1559449

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 4 publications

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“…The wiring harness mass of wired communication systems imposes a drawback to the ever decreasing sized satellites. In order to minimize the harness mass, different wireless solutions including optical and radio frequency (RF) based have been demonstrated in some space missions [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. The use of smart intra-spacecraft data communication using optical and radio frequency is expected to rise in future missions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intra‐spacecraft optical communication solutions using discrete transceiver

Mughal

Ali

Praks

et al. 2019

Satell Commun Network

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The ever-decreasing size of the small satellites with more demanding payloads has opened new research areas to investigate innovative onboard data handling solutions. The paper presents the use of optical intra satellite communication using discretely designed transceivers. The transceiver can handle large variations in the received photocurrents and implements filtration against the ambient light. The designed transceiver has been tested with selected optical components including infrared diodes, photo detectors and optical guides to validate its functionality. The displacement damage testing on selected optical components was performed to validate their suitability for use in space. The experimental communication schemes have been presented for free space as well as glass fiber based intra spacecraft communication. 10% of the total satellite mass [38]. The added harness mass puts additional constraints on the cost of the mission launch and fuel requirements. Therefore, the space industry is considering novel and out of the box solutions for future small satellite missions. The European Space Agency, in particular, has initiated projects to implement optical communication for inter as well as intra spacecraft communication [39-40]. As part of the inter-satellite communication activities, the first optical inter-satellite communication link was successfully established between the SPOT-4 and ARTEMIS satellites, proving the concept of utilizing optical communication technologies. In 2006, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) demonstrated a bidirectional optical link between its satellite and ARTEMIS. A number of in orbit communication solutions have been demonstrated on-board the spacecrafts in the last few years [10-15]. Although there have been initiatives of light based communication for relatively larger satellites, there has not been much research and development of implementing optical communication for relatively smaller satellites. A trade-off analysis of wire and wireless communication solutions for small spacecrafts was performed based on the recent literature review [20-27]. The traditional wired approach is least affected by the radio interference, achieves high security and reliability but at the expense of harness complexities.

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