Separating and tracking multiple beacon sources for deep space optical communications

Kevin M. Birnbaum; Adit Sahasrabudhe; William H. Farr

doi:10.1117/12.843268

26 February 2010 Separating and tracking multiple beacon sources for deep space optical communications

Kevin M. Birnbaum, Adit Sahasrabudhe, William H. Farr

Proceedings Volume 7587, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XXII; 75870Q (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.843268
Event: SPIE LASE, 2010, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

We propose a solution for pointing and tracking an optical terminal using one or more beacons and a slowly varying background image. The primary application is a deep space optical communication terminal, where multiple source tracking provides robustness against beacon outage. Our solution uses optical orthogonal codes modulated on each beacon to separate the signal from each source for centroiding. This technique allows calculation of the transmit pointing vector from each beacon location as well as from the background image. The latter can be used to track during beacon outages. We present a simple algorithm for performing this separation, and apply it to experimental data from a photon-counting detector illuminated by two beacons and one constant source. Our results show that the photon flux from each source can be accurately estimated even in the low signal, high background regime. We estimate the variance of the signal estimator due to Poisson fluctuations and infer the effect on a centroid estimator for tracking.

Citation Download Citation

Kevin M. Birnbaum, Adit Sahasrabudhe, and William H. Farr "Separating and tracking multiple beacon sources for deep space optical communications", Proc. SPIE 7587, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XXII, 75870Q (26 February 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.843268

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