Optical feeder links (OFL) are expected to become part of future Very High Throughput Satellite (VHTS) systems in response to the growing demand for higher capacity and lower costs. H2020 VERTIGO (Very High Throughput Satellite Ground Optical Link) project was set to prove key optical communication technologies and to address: 1) Throughput increase with high spectral and power efficiencies. 2) Higher optical power generation and delivery. 3) Atmospheric turbulence mitigation by optical and digital processing. Transmit and receive optical communication models were developed in rack units for assessing, in laboratory and outdoor trials, their intrinsic performance, robustness against atmospheric turbulence and compatibility with other technologies. The models for 25 Gbps OOK/DPSK and RF analog modulation with optically pre-amplified direct or differential detection are reported with the achieved performance. An atmospheric channel emulator fed with time series established by simulations was used to mimic the propagation losses and fading of the optical signal coupled into the receiver. Both the downlink and uplink under weak or strong turbulence were emulated. For digital transmission experiments, the performance metrics include BER curves, detection sensitivity and power penalty. State-of-the-art sensitivities were achieved especially under 25 Gbps DPSK. For RF analog transmission, the performance metrics were constellation diagrams and Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) measured for various modulations from QPSK to 64-QAM. Are reported the results of optical transmission experiments first performed in the laboratory under static and dynamic propagation channels, then in the outdoor trial successfully carried out in July between Jungfraujoch and Zimmerwald in Switzerland.
These last years have seen a raising interest for ground to GEO satellites optical very high throughput links, i.e. GEO-feeder links, or GEO-FL. However, despite their potential, these applications have to overcome atmospheric turbulence, which requires the development of mitigation techniques, such as adaptive optics (AO). In the case of GEO-FL, AO performance is limited by the Point-Ahead Angle (PAA) induced anisoplanatism. We describe here how our feedback on our field experiments helped us to design ONERA’s AO-compensated ground station, FEELINGS, and the status of said ground station in the fall of 2022.
HARMONI is the first light, adaptive optics assisted, integral field spectrograph for the European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). A work-horse instrument, it provides the ELT’s diffraction limited spectroscopic capability across the near-infrared wavelength range. HARMONI will exploit the ELT’s unique combination of exquisite spatial resolution and enormous collecting area, enabling transformational science. The design of the instrument is being finalized, and the plans for assembly, integration and testing are being detailed. We present an overview of the instrument’s capabilities from a user perspective, and provide a summary of the instrument’s design. We also include recent changes to the project, both technical and programmatic, that have resulted from red-flag actions. Finally, we outline some of the simulated HARMONI observations currently being analyzed.
Space data highway networks are currently being deployed to provide high data rate connectivity to non-fibre-connected areas around the world and to prepare the incoming growth of Internet Of Things market. Among other solutions, GEO optical feeder links are seen as the backbone of the future globalized very high data rate satellite-based telecommunication networks. The FEEDELIO experiment developed for ESA in April 2019 demonstrated the relevance of angular decorrelation models to assess the statistical characteristics of the pre-compensated uplink irradiance that is deeply affected by anisoplanatism. Based on the conclusion drawn from this experiment, we present the results of a preliminary design study of an Adaptive Optics (AO) pre-compensated optical feeder links ground station. Exploiting end-to-end simulations under relevant turbulence conditions, time-correlated fading statistics are investigated to provide typical fading durations for AO pre-compensated optical channel, taking into account the impact of point-ahead mispointing errors.
To concurrently cope with the scarcity of RF frequency bands, the growing capacity demand and the required lower cost of the ground segment, Very High Throughput Satellites systems must rely on new technical solutions. Optical feeder links are considered as a promising alternative to surpass classical RF technology, offering assets inherent to optical technologies (large bandwidth, no frequency regulation, low beam divergence, components availability). Nevertheless the potential of this technology shall not conceal the remaining challenges to be overcome to make it relevant for operational missions : clouds, turbulence, power generation and high efficiency modulations. VERTIGO (Very High Throughput Satellite Ground Optical Link) is a 3-year H2020 project funded by the European commission and started mid-2019 focusing on the optical link itself regardless of site diversity aspect and aiming at demonstrating in a ground demonstration required technologies to implement very high capacity optical feeder links. In particular, VERTIGO is built on 3 pillars each addressing a key issue for the implementation of optical feerder links: 1) Throughput increase through the use of advanced schemes with high spectral and power efficiency compared to current modulations used in space, as well as RF-over-Fiber approach. 2) High optical power generation to close the demanding link budgets by developing on-board and ground means to raise the transmitted optical power, not only based on amplifier power increase, but also on incoherent/coherent power combining. 3) Opto-mechanical and digital techniques for the mitigation of atmospheric propagation impairments, to make full use of throughput and power increases. Several demonstrations in-flight or on-ground already demonstrated separately key aspects (atmospheric propagation and impairments mitigation techniques, modulation format, high power…), for the implementation of optical (feeder) links. These aspects are closely linked since the solutions to each of them are necessary but not sufficient to allow for high throughput transmissions. VERTIGO concept is to address each key issue with at least one solution and to combine them in an unprecedented manner. To reach these objectives, VERTIGO will lean on a highly skilled consortium composed of : CREONIC, ETH Zürich, Fraunhofer HHI, Gooch and Housego, Leo Space Photonics RD, ONERA, Thales Research and Technology, Thales Alenia Space in France and Switzerland. This paper will present the VERTIGO project and its status.
Mitigation of turbulence-induced disturbances is crucial for high data rate optical links in the atmosphere. Sensorless adaptive optics, based on the optimization of the coupling in a single mode fiber, is a promising solution as it circumvents the limitations of conventional wavefront sensing in strong perturbations. We propose the use of a spatial multiplexer to reduce the bandwidth of the temporal modulation required with such a technique. In this approach, after correction by a deformable mirror, the residual perturbations are analyzed thanks to the multiplexer. The concept and first results of laboratory tests are presented.
HARMONI is the adaptive optics assisted, near-infrared and visible light integral field spectrograph for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). A first light instrument, it provides the work-horse spectroscopic capability for the ELT. As the project approaches its Final Design Review milestone, the design of the instrument is being finalized, and the plans for assembly, integration and testing are being detailed. We present an overview of the instrument’s capabilities from a user perspective, provide a summary of the instrument’s design, including plans for operations and calibrations, and provide a brief glimpse of the predicted performance for a specific observing scenario. The paper also provides some details of the consortium composition and its evolution since the project commenced in 2015.
The CHARA Array is the longest baseline optical interferometer in the world. Operated with natural seeing, it has delivered landmark sub-milliarcsecond results in the areas of stellar imaging, binaries, and stellar diameters. However, to achieve ambitious observations of faint targets such as young stellar objects and active galactic nuclei, higher sensitivity is required. For that purpose, adaptive optics are developed to correct atmospheric turbulence and non-common path aberrations between each telescope and the beam combiner lab. This paper describes the AO software and its integration into the CHARA system. We also report initial on-sky tests that demonstrate an increase of scientific throughput by sensitivity gain and by extending useful observing time in worse seeing conditions. Our 6 telescopes and 12 AO systems with tens of critical alignments and control loops pose challenges in operation. We describe our methods enabling a single scientist to operate the entire system.
Adaptive-Optics (AO) pre-compensation of atmospheric turbulence effects is one of the most promising technologies for achieving very high throughput optical GEO feeder links. However, its great performance has been proven mostly through numerical simulations until now, and experimental work on the subject is still at a very preliminary stage [1]. The FEEDELIO experiment (FEEDELIO for FEEDEr Link adaptive Optics), contracted to ONERA by ESA and described in this paper, goes one step further towards an experimental validation of this concept.
This paper describes the experimental implementation of an AO pre-compensated link on a 13 km slant path in Tenerife, Canary Islands. This experiment is designed to be representative of a GEO feeder link, and aims at demonstrating a significant increase of the mean received power and decrease of the power fluctuations thanks to AO. It will also allow to study the impact of the point-ahead angle on overall performance of the AO system.
The FEEDELIO experiment is planned for spring 2019.
Research on III-nitride intersubband (ISB) transitions in the THz spectral range is motivated by the large LO-phonon energy of GaN, which should permit device operation with limited thermal interference, and at infrared wavelengths inaccessible to other III-V compounds due to Reststrahlen absorption. A main challenge to extend the polar GaN-ISB technology towards the THz region comes from the polarization-induced internal electric field, which imposes an additional confinement that increases the energetic distance between the electronic levels. In order to surmount this constraint, we propose alternative multi-layer quantum well designs that create a pseudo-square potential profile with symmetric wavefunctions [1]. The robustness of these designs and their integration in device architectures requiring tunneling transport will be discussed.
An alternative approach to obtain square potential profiles is the use of nonpolar crystallographic orientations. In this contribution, we present an experimental study of THz ISB transitions in m-plane GaN/AlGaN quantum wells grown on free-standing m-GaN [2]. For Al contents below 15%, such structures can be grown without epitaxially-induced extended defects. We demonstrate nonpolar quantum wells which display ISB transitions in the 7-10 THz band, and we will discuss the effect of the doping density in the quantum wells on the transition energy and line width. Finally, we will present a comparative study using silicon and germanium as n-type dopants.
[1] M. Beeler, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 105, 131106 (2014)
[2] C.B. Lim, et al., Nanotechnology 26, 435201 (2015); Nanotechnology 27, 145201 (2016).
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