For some free-space laser communications (lasercom) links impacted by atmospheric-induced scintillation, the principle of reciprocity provides knowledge of a remote terminal's received intensity fluctuations based on measurements of the local terminal's received intensity fluctuations. We evaluate a reciprocity-enhanced technique using optical switching between multiple spatially-diverse transmit apertures to mitigate against atmospheric-induced scintillation. Experimental bit-error rate measurements are presented to quantify the expected performance of this approach in comparison to standard static diversity approaches. We investigate system constraints of this reciprocity-enhanced transmitter diversity approach, and identify candidate optical switches and digital logic for implementation.

Date Published: 4 June 2020
PDF: 17 pages
Proc. SPIE 11272, Free-Space Laser Communications XXXII, 1127209 (4 June 2020); doi: 10.1117/12.2548463

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 11272:
Free-Space Laser Communications XXXII
Hamid Hemmati; Don M. Boroson, Editor(s)