This groundbreaking resource is the first book to offer you a thorough, practical treatment of laser space communications. The book focuses on the feasibility of laser space communication links between satellites, satellites and airborne platforms, and satellites and ground based stations to achieve worldwide connectivity. You get expert guidance on weather avoidance approaches and adaptive antenna subsystems that help mitigate the effects of turbulence. The book presents simplified, yet highly accurate, engineering expressions of complex mathematics of turbulence that provide you with numerical values in the links' signal power budget. Moreover, you find an entire chapter devoted to noise photons and their effect on the bit error rate. This comprehensive volume covers a wide range of critical topics you need to understand for your work in the field, from a discussion on laser vs. RF communications in space, basic design features of a laser transceiver, and configuration of inter-satellite communication links, to selection of ground station locations, 5th Generation Internet (5-GENIN), and signal modulation schemes. The book is supported with over 70 illustrations and more than 100 equations.

This reference provides an overview of near-Earth laser communication theory developments including component and subsystem technologies, fundamental limitations, and approaches to reach those limits. It covers basic concepts and state-of-the-art technologies, emphasizing device technology, implementation techniques, and system trades. The authors discuss hardware technologies and their applications, and also explore ongoing research activities and those planned for the near future. This new edition includes major to minor revisions with technology updates on nearly all chapters.

This introduction to the next generation of human telecommunications enterprise examines the development of laser satellite communications and describes its advantages over previous technologies. It looks at the development of the technology and the industry through wired and wireless media and presents the vision, promise, and challenges of free-space lasers. The book balances its focused consideration of the telecommunications industry and markets with practical thoughts on creating a business involved in the introduction of commercial laser satellite communications systems. Scholars, investors, venture capitalists, policy makers, and corporate leaders will find this to be a comprehensive and eye-opening bridge between the existing telecommunications industry and the opportunities of the next generation. The opening chapters introduce the concepts of Migration, Specialization, and Interconnectivity as solutions inherent in third generation laser-satellite communications. The high capacity of the optical spectrum invites migration of applications beyond the narrow RF spectra to the high frequencies of free-space laser beams. Migration stimulates specialization of voice and duplex at the lower, optimal RF spectra. The third generation—laser-wired space—focuses around global satellite interconnectivity between fiber optics and RF. The final chapters introduce a model business concept to pioneer the third generation. Several approaches to capitalization, organization, technology development, and business strategies provide an exciting stimulus for pragmatic approaches to commercial concepts.

This is a comprehensive tutorial on the emerging technology of free-space laser communications (FSLC). The book offers an all-inclusive source of information on the basics of FSLC, and a review of state-of-the-art technologies. Coverage includes atmospheric effects for laser propagation and FSLC systems performance and design. Free-Space Laser Communications is a valuable resource for engineers, scientists and students interested in laser communication systems designed for the atmospheric optical channel.

A model reference control system has been developed to adaptively control the pointing function of a "Pointing, Acquisition and Tracking" system in a satellite-based Laser Communication system. This approach allows the description of the system transfer behavior to be defined in software, and the behavior of the real system to be driven to this software model. The consequence is the isolation of the real, transient and wear affected system from the ideal, modeled system performance, allowing the "forcing function" of the controller to correct for transients (e.g. platform jitter) and for long term effects of wear and operational conditions. The use of this technique in compensating for bending modes in less expensive optical mirror systems has been experimentally demonstrated. The consequence of using this improved pointing accuracy and the associated improvement in burst error performance to allow transient control of output carrier power is suggested as a means of enhancing system reliability.