ACQUISITION AND TRACKING LASER COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS.
Abstract
A three-month study was performed to arrive at a design plan for an automatic acquisition and tracking laser communications system. Three different techniques for an acquisition and tracking communications system were evaluated, and a design plan made for the most promising approach. In addition, a series of atmospheric propagation experiments were performed over a 1-kilometer turbulent atmospheric path to determine optimum beamwidths and receiving aperture sizes. Furthermore, studies of an electromagnetically operated beam-steering mirror were made. In the recommended system a mutually aligned laser transmitter and receiver combination using a common mirror steering element is used to always point both receiver and transmitter along the same direction in space. The focal plane of the optic is scanned to acquire and subsequently track the reflected signal from a retro-reflector mounted on the remote terminal. The automatic acquisition and search phase is accomplished by moving the mirror beam-steering element in a raster scan. The automatic tracking function is performed by electronically scanning the focal plane of the optics with an image dissector photomultiplier. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1966
- Accession Number
- AD0804386
Entities
People
- G. Ratcliffe
- K. Lang
- R. Lucy
Organizations
- Sylvania Electric Products