A multi stage pointing acquisition and tracking (PAT) control system approach for air to air laser communications

This paper discusses a multi staged gimbal system used on the Recce Intel Laser Crosslink (RILC) system developed for research by Trex Enterprises. Although a complete description of the RILC system has been published in Feldman and Gill (1998) and Arnold et al. (1998), that describe the optical and communications components, this paper focuses, in greater detail, on the control systems for RILC. An overview of the RILC system is provided and controls for each subsystem are described. Finally, results of pointing and tracking from actual field testing over a 50 km test range are presented.