Method for 10 Gbps near-ground quasi-static free-space laser transmission by nutation mutual coupling

Abstract

This study proposes a method to reduce link loss in near-ground space laser communication with fiber-nutation-based mutual coupling. We designed a transmit-receive coaxial laser terminal with a 50 mm aperture and implemented beam acquisition tracking and nutation coupling using a single-detector and single-actuator. Following an indoor experiment and a 1 km field test, the single-ended nutation coupling and the two-way nutation mutual coupling theories were compared and analyzed. In conclusion, the proposed method could significantly increase the reception efficiency by ∼8 dB. The bit error rate of 10 Gbps pseudo-random code transmission was 2.478E-9. We also demonstrated video transmission.