Shipborne Acquisition, Tracking, and Pointing Experimental Verifications towards Satellite-to-Sea Laser Communication

oleh: Dong He, Qiang Wang, Xiang Liu, Zhijun Song, Jianwei Zhou, Zhongke Wang, Chunyang Gao, Tong Zhang, Xiaoping Qi, Yi Tan, Ge Ren, Bo Qi, Jigang Ren, Yuan Cao, Yongmei Huang

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2019-09-01

Deskripsi

Acquisition, tracking, and pointing (ATP) is a key technology in free space laser communication that has a characteristically high precision. In this paper, we report the acquisition and tracking of low-Earth-orbit satellites using shipborne ATP and verify the feasibility of establishing optical links between laser communication satellites and ships in the future. In particular, we developed a shipborne ATP system for satellite-to-sea applications in laser communications. We also designed an acquisition strategy for satellite-to-sea laser communication. In addition, a method was proposed for improving shipborne ATP pointing error. We tracked some stars at sea, achieving a pointing accuracy of less than 180μrad.We then acquired and tracked some low-Earth-orbit satellites at sea, achieving a tracking accuracy of about 20μrad. The results achieved in this work experimentally demonstrate the feasibility of ATP in satellite-to-sea laser communications.