Development of laser crosslink for airborne operations

The requirement to send ever increasing amounts of tactical military information between sensor aircraft and information processing facilities for command and control purposes has begun to press the limits of present airborne data links, even when data compression techniques are used. Utilization of optical data links is under consideration by the United States Air Force and the development of a possible airborne laser data link is under way by the United States Air Force Research Laboratory Sensors Directorate (AFRL/SN). This technology development program is being conducted in two phases. The first phase included the design and evaluation of a laser data link ground demonstration carried out in August and September 1995 between a laser terminal on Mount (Mt.) Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii and a similar laser terminal on Mt. Haleakala on the island of Maui located 150 kilometers (km) away. The laser terminals used in this ground demonstration were capable of 1.1 gigabits per second (GBPS), full duplex communications. A motion and vibration base was used to simulate an aircraft environment and the terminal instrumentation was also used to collect atmospheric effects data. Results of the ground demonstration including signal acquisition, tracking stability and scintillation were used to modify the design of the laser terminal for follow-on air-to-air operations. The second phase of the AFRL/SN development program is the transition of the ground demonstration results into a refined terminal design for installation into two business size jet aircraft.