Progress on ELROI satellite license plate flight prototypes

Holmes, Rebecca M.; Gill, Sawyer; Harris, James Z.; Lansford, Joellen S.; Myers, Riley; Weaver, Charles T.; Zucherman, Aaron; Jorgensen, A. M.; Palmer, D. M.

doi:10.1117/12.2306091

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…This test served both to validate link budget calculations, as discussed in more detail in 1 , and to verify data analysis techniques for conditions similar to a LEO system. According to our link budget calculations, signal rates of 3 to 20 photons/s will be typical at our ground station for prototype ELROI beacons on LEO satellites, depending on the beacon power and range 1,7 . To approximate the expected LEO link budgets, the ground test used laser diodes with lower peak power than the orbital beacons, a neutral density filter on one of the beacons to further reduce the outgoing light, and a smaller lens at a variety of apertures to replace the telescope that would be used for an orbital beacon.…”

Section: Example: Decoding Experimental Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to our link budget calculations, signal rates of 3 to 20 photons/s will be typical at our ground station for prototype ELROI beacons on LEO satellites, depending on the beacon power and range 1,7 . We expect to be able to identify our current flight prototypes with codeword error rates of 10 −5 or lower, and under ideal conditions codeword error rates may reach 10 −9 .…”

Section: Error Ratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We encourage others to consider observing our test flights. Details about current flight prototypes, as well as practical considerations and necessary equipment for those interested in observing ELROI test flights from their own ground stations, may be found in 7 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extreme background-rejection techniques for the ELROI optical satellite license plate

Holmes

Palmer

2019

Appl. Opt.

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The Extremely Low-Resource Optical Identifier (ELROI) is a concept for an autonomous, low-power optical "license plate" that can be attached to anything that goes into space. ELROI uses short, omnidirectional flashes of laser light to encode a unique ID number which can be read by a small ground telescope using a photoncounting sensor and innovative extreme background-rejection techniques. ELROI is smaller and lighter than a typical radio beacon, low-power enough to run on its own small solar cell, and can safely operate for the entire orbital lifetime of a satellite or debris object. The concept has been validated in ground tests, and orbital prototypes are scheduled for launch in 2018 and beyond. In this paper we focus on the details of the encoding scheme and data analysis that allow a milliwatt optical signal to be read from orbit. We describe the techniques of extreme background-rejection needed to achieve this, including spectral and temporal filtering, and discuss the requirements for an error-correcting code to encode the ID number. Worked examples with both simulated and experimental (ground test) data will illustrate the methods used. We present these techniques to describe a new photon-counting optical communication concept, and to encourage others to consider observing upcoming test flights. a) rmholmes@lanl.gov; ISR-1, Space Science & Applications b) palmer@lanl.gov; ISR-2, Space & Remote Sensing decoding with prior information, as implemented in (for example) turbo codes, LDPC codes, and, recently, polar codes 19-21 . These types of ECC codes are frequently used in modern digital communications, including space communications, and have known optimal decoding techniques.FUNDING

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Section: Example: Decoding Experimental Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Error Ratesmentioning

confidence: 99%