Research and development of 40Gbps optical free space communication from satellite/airplane

This paper explains a plan of research and development of high speed optical communication technology for observed data transmission from satellites/airplanes. The amounts of data acquired on observation satellites or airplanes have become larger with the rapid improvements of resolutions of sensors. In order to transmit the vast amounts of data, a communication system that combines free space optical communication system and terrestrial optical networks is proposed. Particular communication protocol is planned to be developed to realize efficient and stable link quality under the special characteristics of free space optical link such as interruption by rain or cloud. Also digital coherent detection scheme is proposed to be implemented to the system to overcome the degradation by atmospheric scintillation. The plan includes the development of mobile onboard laser communication terminal and the demonstration experiments of the total system.