Dirk Giggenbach

Space-quest: experiments with quantum entanglement in space

Quantumentanglement is, according to Erwin Schrodinger in 1935, the essence of quantumphysics. It inspires fundamental questions about the principles of nature. By testing the entanglement of particles,we are able to ask fundamental questions about realism and locality in nature. Local realismimposes certain constraints in statistical correlations ofmeasurements onmulti-particle systems. Quantummechanics, however, predicts that entangled systems havemuch stronger than classical correlations that are independent of the distance between the particles and are not explicablewith classical physics.

Optical Satellite Downlinks to Optical Ground Stations and High-Altitude Platforms

Earth-observation (EO) satellite missions using high-resolution optical or radar sensors are producing an immense amount of data which needs to be send down to earth. The fraction of satellite operational time in future missions is therefore clearly limited by the downlink-capability. The current X-band architecture is facing its technological limitations in terms of data rate while causing increased demand on antenna-sizes and transmit power. This bottleneck can be overcome by direct optical downlinks from EO-satellites to the ground with multi-gigabit data rates. According optical satellite terminals will be extremely small and light-weight and will require few transmit power, but one drawback is the link blockage by thick clouds. This can be overcome either by ground station diversity and careful site selection or by using optical terminals onboard high altitude platforms which serve as relais-stations for the satellite. Here we present feasibility and expected performance of these two optical scenarios and propose according space and ground station architectures.

Fading-loss assessment in atmospheric free-space optical communication links with on-off keying

Link-budget calculations are a common way to assess system parameters, such as the required transmitter power and receiver sensitivity, in free-space optical (FSO) communication systems. One of the biggest challenges for long-range FSO deployment is its signal propagation under turbulent atmospheric conditions, which produce intensity fluctuations. Methods to estimate atmospheric-fading loss in radio-frequency systems cannot be adapted to the FSO channel. Until now no general closed-form methods have been developed to describe the fading loss in such a channel. A method to calculate the losses due to scintillation fading in the threshold approach, based on lognormal statistics of the received power, is presented.

Overview of the inter-orbit and the orbit-to-ground laser communication demonstration by OICETS

The experiment results on the inter-orbit laser communications between OICETS and a geostationary satellite and the results of two kinds of orbit-to-ground laser communications between OICETS and ground stations are summarized. The geostationary satellite for the inter-orbit demonstrations is the European Space Agencys geostationary satellite, ARTEMIS, and the ground stations for the orbit-to-ground demonstrations are of the National Institute of Information, and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), respectively. The descriptions of those experiments contain some statistically analyzed results as well as data samples measured during the demonstrations. The authors present the overview of these demonstration progresses and discuss on the results.

142 km, 5.625 Gbps free-space optical link based on homodyne BPSK modulation

A free-space optical link based on homodyne BPSK (binary phase shift keying) has been established between two of the Canary islands, La Palma and Tenerife, to transmit 5.625 Gpbs across 142 km. This link verifies homodyne BPSK as a robust modulation scheme even for the transmission through the atmosphere.

Evaluation of FEC for the atmospheric optical IM/DD channel

Channel measurements were performed by the German Aerospace Center in various near ground optical channels including a 1.5 km horizontal path as well as a 61km path. These measurements clearly showed that the atmosphere causes very slow fading (compared to the high data rates usually used in optical communication systems), which significantly degrades the transmission quality. As transmitter power and receiver sensitivity are limited by the transmission technology, fading depicts a severe problem, that can be reduced by the use of forward error correction schemes (FEC) in order to improve system performance. Therefore FEC was subject of investigations by means of simulations. To figure out which FEC methods are useful for applications in the atmospheric optical channels simulations of standard block codes and interleavers have been done. They were based on data sets taken in the various channel measurements. The simulations point out that only very long interleaving can increase performance significantly.

Optical data downlinks from Earth observation platforms

The increasing resolution of earth observation sensors will require much higher data rates for the data downlink in future than is feasible with conventional RF-technology. This applies for earth observation satellites as well as for aeronautic observation platforms, such as aircraft or stratospheric high altitude platforms. The most promising solution for this data downlink bottleneck is the application of optical free space transmission technologies. DLR has built diverse atmospheric flight terminals and performed several trials of optical downlinks from space (together with partnering organizations) as well as from atmospheric carriers in recent years. Here we present and compare results of such communication system trials.

Multiple wavelength free-space laser communications

Free-space optical communications systems in the atmosphere, based on intensity modulation and direct detection, are heavily affected by fading caused by turbulence cells of varying scale and motion. Several data sets of fading measurements under different scenarios have been recorded demonstrating this effect. In this paper we introduce a form of free-space laser communications involving a source operating on several wavelengths. The goal is to overcome atmospheric interference on a communications link. We have performed simulations using the DLR PILab Matlab toolbox. These indicate the extent to which the turbulence and beam properties interact. Experimental investigations are planned. Further properties are also taken into account, including the choice of appropriate laser bandwidth and wavelengths, the effect of atmospheric absorption from aerosols and molecular absorption lines, as well as effects of atmospheric structure on beam propagation. Possible scenarios for application of this scheme will be presented as well.

Experimental verification of the limits of optical channel intensity reciprocity

Optical data links through the atmosphere suffer from turbulence-induced signal scintillation. In a coaxially-symmetric bidirectional link scenario, the variations of the axial intensities at both ends are correlated. This relation can be used as an inherent feedback mechanism, with negligible delay, to enhance the capacity of the transmission system. By experiment, we show the correlation coefficient of both received signals can reach values close to one over long atmospheric distances, provided the receiver apertures are smaller than specific intensity speckle structures, while the correlation reduces gradually with larger apertures. This allows transmission capacity to be optimized with adaptive transceiver systems that take into account the degree of correlation.

Results of the optical downlink experiment KIODO from OICETS satellite to optical ground station Oberpfaffenhofen (OGS-OP)

Optical LEO downlinks from the Japanese OICETS to the optical ground station built by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) near Munich have been performed. This was the first optical LEO downlink on European grounds. The ground station received a 50-Mbit/s OOK signal at 847 nm on its 40-cm Cassegrain telescope and sent two spatially displaced beacon beams towards OICETS. Five out of eight trials could be performed successfully while the other three were hindered by cloud blockage. A BER of 10-6 has been reached. The elevation angle above the horizon ranged between 2° and 45°. The Fried parameter and the scintillation were measured with instruments inside the ground station. The beacon power received by the LUCE Terminal onboard OICETS has also been recorded. This paper describes the setup of the experiment and highlights the results of the measurement trials.