John Mazurowski

Engineering of fiber optics infrastructure

Fiber optic technology is making significant advances for use in a number of air and space platforms. Many of these applications involve integration into systems which make extensive use of optical fiber for high bandwidth signal transmission. The large signal transmission bandwidth of optical fiber has a large and positive impact on the overall weight of the cable harness. Several current air and space platforms that use fiber optic systems include commercial and military aircraft, unmanned aircraft, the International Space Station and several NASA and international space exploration systems. Substantial sources of variability may be introduced in the fiber optic connectors and termini that are designed into each piece of equipment unless the design specifications adequately identify operating and storage environments, use widely recognized standards for fiber optic cable assembly manufacturing and testing. At each development and manufacturing stage, from design through manufacturing, each type of fiber optic connector and termini may require unique fixtures for processing and inspection. Involving personnel from design through installation, together with suppliers, may help avoid significant costs for equipment and minimize or eliminate costly defects. Fiber optic technologies do not require significant power and complex electronics while allowing signal processing to be located close to the networked applications. There are many benefits of fiber optic systems for air and space applications, including minimal electromagnetic interference and environmental effects, lightweight and smaller diameter cables, greater bandwidth and the ability to be easily upgraded. This paper presents an overview of defining fiber optic system and component performance by identifying operating and storage environmental requirements, using appropriate standards to be used in fiber optic cable assembly manufacturing and inspection, interacting with component manufacturers for interoperable hardware, developing inspection methods and fixtures compliant with the selected standards and developing a quality plan that assures satisfaction of every design requirement.

Interoperability within optical networks in aerospace platforms

A concept for the architecture of optical local area networks for aerospace applications has been established by a team of engineers representing several organizations within the aerospace industry. The concept has been derived using sound systems engineering principles, and uses Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) to greatly increase data transmission capacity. Interoperability for the purpose of managing platform life cycle costs has been a theme throughout the effort. Technical guidance and standards documents are being co-issued within the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and Aeronautical Radio Inc. (ARINC).

Environmental stress effects on fiber optic cable end faces

The PC and PC-NC termini studied here showed tolerable changes in optical transmittance under temperature cycling, vibration testing or mating/de-mating cycles with periodic cleaning. The flat-NC termini studied here showed much greater average change, and much greater variability, from all stimuli than the other types. We hypothesize that this is due to variation in fiber height, and was in contrast to expected variations fiber height for the PC-NC termini as well. There are substantial differences between the designs of the PC-NC and the flat-NC termini which could cause the discrepancy: 1) end face shape, 2) very short fiber attachment region inside the flat-NC terminus, 3) possible inconsistent fiber coating adhesion, or 4) stress caused from use of tight buffered cable with the flat-NC terminus. Failure analysis did not detect epoxy failure. The mate/demate test results highlight the importance of regular cleaning to prevent end face damage.

Bioinspired multicontrollable metasurfaces and metamaterials for terahertz applications

Inspired by biological multicontrollability, we have devised the concept of multicontrollable metasurfaces. Comprising electrically small elements called MetaAtoms, a metasurface could be either homogeneous or graded on the wavelength scale for operation in the terahertz regime. The MetaAtoms would comprise diverse pixels each of which is made of magnetically controlled, thermally controlled, electrically controlled, or optically controlled material. Stacks of parallel multicontrollable metasurfaces would function as multicontrollable metamaterials.

Implementation of optical networks in aerospace

The composition of optical network systems and components is often specific to the operating environment. This work describes progress that has been made in development of optical networks for aerospace platforms. Aerospace and military networks use technology developed for commercial networking applications; some leaning from the transition is described. In particular, a standard WDM LAN architecture has been released as an SAE specification. Several example networks, compliant with the standard WDM LAN architecture, have been produced.

SAE standards for WDM LAN: Optical network architecture, access, control and physical layer

This paper documents recent progress in WDM LAN standards that enable capacity upgrades for on-board aircraft networks to support growth in aggregate bandwidth of platforms and applications in the next 10-25 years. The projected growth is expected to be orders of magnitude greater than those supported by traditional avionics backbone buses. WDM systems and networks can result in substantial reduction in infrastructure complexity, improved mission flexibility, aircraft network reconfiguration, and security.

WDM lan node design and test bed

We report the results of the implementation and testing of prototype nodes consisting of optical network elements conforming to the definitions of the SAE WDM LAN standard. Testing has validated the performance of a reference design for the SAE WDM LAN, demonstrated applications relevant to aircraft platforms, and advanced the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the constituent technologies.

Aerospace cable repair via field-portable fiber optic tip shaping and permanent mechanical splice technology

In this paper we have described the development of a novel fiber optic cable restoration technology based on field-portable fiber tip shaper and mechanical splicer devices. The cable restoration procedure accommodates aerospace simplex fiber optic cable, fiber with both strippable and un-strippable coatings, produces no hazardous waste (glass shards), requires little training and virtually no preventative maintenance to produce mechanical splices that meet or exceed MIL-PRF-24623/7 beginning of life insertion loss and twist specification requirements.

Photonic component and subsystem reliability modeling

The focus of the project being summarized herein is to develop a method for predicting the reliability of photonic components and assemblies that is compatible with MIL-HDBK-217, so that system level designers can efficiently estimate the reliability of systems using fiber optics and photonics. Photonic part types being addressed in this study are: WDMs (Thin film and Fiber based), Couplers (fiber), Taps, Bandsplitters, Isolators, Optical Fiber, Laser pump modules, Photodiodes, Transmitters, Receivers, Transceivers, Filters, Variable Optical Attenuators (VOAs), Fiber connectors, Cable assemblies, and Splices.

Infrared and terahertz generation by ultrafast laser pulses

In this paper, we will present our preliminary results on our development of infrared and terahertz generation by ultrafast laser pulses. The objective of this project is to develop (i) portable and cost effective spatially coherent broadband Infrared (IR) and Terahertz (THz) illuminating light sources. To effectively generate spatially coherent broadband IR and THz sources, we use a novel nonlinear optical technical approach by harnessing the huge nonlinear effect of the specially designed and fabricated photonic crystal fibers (PCF). The major merits of these unique light sources are: (1) broad band (covering a wide range of spectroscopic signatures), (2) spatially coherent (so that beams can be delivered to the far distance like laser beams), (3) compact, portable and small footprint (all fiber design), (4) cost effective (traditional approaches such as cascaded laser systems are complicated and expensive for covering broadband).