The DLR ground station in the optical payload experiment (STROPEX): results of the atmospheric measurement instruments

Knapek, Markus; Horwath, Joachim; Perlot, Nicolas; Wilkerson, Brandon

doi:10.1117/12.679004

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The DLR optical ground station at Oberpfaffenhofen (OGS-OP) including the atmospheric measurement instruments has been developed under an ESA contract and DLR internal support since 2004 [6]. It has been designed to operate in various scenarios as satellite-to-ground links, links to airplanes and links to stratospheric platforms.…”

Section: Description Of the Optical Ground Station Oberpfaffenhofen (mentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical data downlinks from Earth observation platforms

2009

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The increasing resolution of earth observation sensors will require much higher data rates for the data downlink in future than is feasible with conventional RF-technology. This applies for earth observation satellites as well as for aeronautic observation platforms, such as aircraft or stratospheric high altitude platforms. The most promising solution for this data downlink bottleneck is the application of optical free space transmission technologies. DLR has built diverse atmospheric flight terminals and performed several trials of optical downlinks from space (together with partnering organizations) as well as from atmospheric carriers in recent years. Here we present and compare results of such communication system trials.

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Section: Description Of the Optical Ground Station Oberpfaffenhofen (mentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical data downlinks from Earth observation platforms

2009

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“…The measurement instruments in the ground station took advantage of the beacon lasers, which allowed the use of off the shelf silicon detector technology. A detailed description of the transportable optical ground station, the turbulence instruments, and the measurement results can be found in [7].…”

Section: Acquisition and Trackingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Broadband backhaul communication for stratospheric platforms: the stratospheric optical payload experiment (STROPEX)

et al. 2006

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A high bitrate optical downlink was performed by the stratospheric optical payload experiment (STROPEX), a part of the EU CAPANINA project. The STROPEX objectives were to design and build the necessary hardware to demonstrate an optical backhaul downlink from a stratospheric platform to the ground and to carry out channel measurements on the link. A successful measurement campaign at ESRANGE near Kiruna, Sweden achieved all of these objectives. The transportable optical ground station received an almost error free 1.25 Gbit/s data signal from the payload over a distance of 64.3 km with a bit error rate of better than 10 -9 . This paper gives an overview of the stratospheric optical payload experiment, focusing on the airborne free-space experimental laser terminal (FELT). Additionally, the successful measurement campaign is described and the operation of the experiment is outlined.

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“…The central component of the ground station was a 40 cm Cassegrain telescope. The optical communications receiver and the atmospheric turbulence measurement devices are mounted on an optical bench attached to the telescope [7]. Figure 6 shows a sketch of the optical ground station receive path.…”

Section: Transportable Optical Ground Station (Togs)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental verification of optical backhaul links for high‐altitude platform networks: Atmospheric turbulence and downlink availability

Horwath

Perlot

Knapek

et al. 2007

Satell Commun Network

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SUMMARYOptical backhaul downlinks from high-altitude platforms (HAPs) are investigated. An experiment demonstrated the advantages of optical links: a small and lightweight terminal with low power consumption was launched to the stratosphere and data transmitted down to a ground station at a rate of 1:25 Gbit=s: Owing to the chosen system parameters and the high budget margin, disturbing turbulence effects did not decrease the link performance.The scientific aspect of the experiment was to study turbulence effects in order to design future systems with higher transmission performance. On the day of the experiment, measured scintillation and wavefront distortions were minimal in the morning. The best atmospheric conditions were observed about 3 h after sunrise with a peak of the atmospheric coherence length r 0 at 16 cm: An r 0 of 4 cm was measured as the worst case before sunrise and later during the day. This trend could also be observed for power-ðs ; a lognormal intensity probability density function was measured.Apart from the robust intensity modulation scheme with direct detection which was used for the trial, future improved systems could benefit from a coherent transmission scheme. According to the r 0 measurements and further simulations on heterodyne efficiency it turned out that the aperture size can be decreased from 40 to 10 cm without any significant change in the link margin.Future stratospheric optical links between HAPs or links from platforms to satellites will not suffer from cloud blockage but it remains an issue for up/downlinks to a ground station. This can be mitigated by ground-station diversity. Four optical ground stations in the southern part of Europe can lead to an availability of over 98%. The separation distance of the ground stations is about 900 km with a negligible correlation of cloud cover. A change of wavelength from the employed 1.55 to a wavelength around 11-mm with minimum cloud attenuation would increase the link availability for thin clouds.

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The DLR ground station in the optical payload experiment (STROPEX): results of the atmospheric measurement instruments

Cited by 13 publications

References 7 publications

Optical data downlinks from Earth observation platforms

Optical data downlinks from Earth observation platforms

Broadband backhaul communication for stratospheric platforms: the stratospheric optical payload experiment (STROPEX)

Experimental verification of optical backhaul links for high‐altitude platform networks: Atmospheric turbulence and downlink availability

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