Despite numerous challenges optical communication offers faster data transmission than its radio-frequency (RF) counterpart, enabling implementation of technologies requiring high transmission rates. In the satellite communication precise determination of the distance between the ground station and the satellite is needed to properly estimate and control the parameters of its orbit. Several different satellite ranging techniques basing on traditional RF communication has been proposed1–3 , including sequential, pseudo-noise and telemetry ranging. However, significant improvement of the ranging accuracy can be expected when switching to the optical methods4 . Nevertheless, the feasibility and performance of free-space optical communication protocols, including ranging, depends on the overall optical power loss, which is heavily conditioned on the atmospheric turbulence5 . In this paper we present the design of the laboratory setup to test a variant of optical telemetry ranging protocol6 implemented in an optical modem in the presence of atmospheric turbulence, with the expected ranging accuracy of 3 cm. The simulator capabilities include simulation of typical effects occurring as a result of atmospheric turbulence mainly optical scintillation while also studying the Doppler effect due to satellite’s motion relative to ground station7, 8 . The optical channel simulator is based on fiber optics with electro-optical intensity modulator controlled by arbitrary waveform generator.
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