Industrial, NASA, and DoD spacecraft designers have recognized the advantages of using fiber optic components and networks for their internal satellite data handling needs. Among the benefits are the total elimination of cable-to-cable and box-to-box EMI; significant size, weight and power reduction; greater on-orbit and integration and test flexibility and significantly lower integration and test
costs. Additionally, intra-satellite data rates of 1 to 10 Gbps appear to be an absolute requirement for a number of advanced systems planned for development in the next few years. The only practical
way to support these data rates is with fiber optics.
Space Photonics and the University of Arkansas have developed fiber optic components (FireFiberTM) and networks that are designed specifically to meet these on-board, high data rate needs using NASA approved materials, packaging processes, and approved radiation tolerant devices. This paper will discuss recent developments in photonic components for spaceborne networks.
This paper describes a novel laser communications transceiver for use in multi-platform satellite networks or clusters that provides internal pointing and tracking technique allowing static mounting of the transceiver subsystems and minimal use of mechanical stabilization techniques. This eliminates the need for the large, power hungry, mechanical gimbals that are required for laser cross-link pointing, acquisition and tracking. The miniature transceiver is designed for pointing accuracies required for satellite cross-link distances of between 500 meters to 5000 meters. Specifically, the designs are targeting Air Force Research Lab's TechSat21 Program, although alternative transceiver configurations can provide for much greater link distances and other satellite systems. The receiver and transmitter are connected via fiber optic cabling from a separate electronics subsystem containing the optoelectronics PCBs, thereby eliminating active optoelectronic elements from the transceiver's mechanical housing. The internal acquisition and tracking capability is provided by an advanced micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) and an optical design that provides a specific field-of-view based on the satellite cluster's interface specifications. The acquisition & tracking control electronics will utilize conventional closed loop tracking techniques. The link optical power budget and optoelectronics designs allow use of transmitter sources with output powers of near 100 mW. The transceiver will provide data rates of up to 2.5 Gbps and operate at either 1310 nm or 1550 nm. In addition to space-based satellite to satellite cross-links, we are planning to develop a broad range of applications including air to air communications between highly mobile airborne platforms and terrestrial fixed point to point communications.
Industrial, NASA, and DOD spacecraft designers have recognized the advantages of using fiber optic components and networks for their internal satellite data handling needs. Among the benefits are the total elimination of cable-to-cable and box-to-box EMI; significant size, weight and power reduction; greater on-orbit flexibility, simplified integration and test (I&T), and significantly lower I&T costs. Additionally, intra-satellite data rates of 1 to 10 Gbps appear to be an absolute requirement for a number of advanced systems planned for development in the next few years. The only practical way to support these data rates is with fiber optics. Space Photonics and the University of Arkansas have developed fiber optic components (FireFiberTM) and networks that are designed specifically to meet these on-board, high data rate needs using NASA approved materials, packaging processes, and approved radiation tolerant devices. This paper discusses issues relevant to these components and networks.
Optical Networks Inc. has developed and demonstrated a set of space-flight worthy, 12-channel fiber optic transmitter and receiver modules capable of providing data bandwidths up to 1 Gbps. This is accomplished using radiation tolerant commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) optical and electronic components. The parallel spaceborne fiber optic data bus (SFODB) implementation uses ten out of the available twelve fiber optic channels in the parallel fiber optic transmitter (PFOTX) and the parallel fiber optic receiver (PFORX) to implement a byte wide ring bus. The two spare fibers are used to implement a 2 by 10 redundancy configuration. The components were developed under a NASA/GSFC Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
We have designed, built, and tested a sixteen channel fiber optic switching system based on the use of a bulk acousto-optic (AO) Bragg cell. The operational configuration known as a 'barrel shift' was developed specifically for fiber optic data acquisition system upgrades for the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) in Batavia, Illinois. The prototype switch was delivered to CDF and is planned for tests targeting CDF upgrades in the next few years. Its use is intended for switching systems that specifically route time division multiplexed data channels. The acousto-optic barrel shifter (AOBS) simultaneously switches 16 parallel input optical fibers through a sequence of 16 separate states; after a complete cycle, all input channels have been routed to all output fibers for a total of 256 separate connections. The performance of the switch was demonstrated by switching transition times of 1 microsecond(s) ec, bit-error-rates (BERs) less than 10-12 at 1.2 Gbits/sec, operation over a range of optical wavelengths from 1285 nm to 1320 nm, and low dependence on optical polarization. The optics package was contained in a portable enclosure 12 inches wide, 6 inches in height, and 16 inches in length.
This paper reports the design and test of a high performance wideband heterodyne channelizer with low spurs due to reference-reference mixing. The measured signal to noise density ratios agree with the analytical predictions to within 1 dB in the center channels and 3 dB on the outer channels. Asymmetric optical power splitting, unequal aperture times and dual detector cancellation were utilized to achieve low spurs.
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