A Relay-Assisted Ground to LEO and LEO to GEO Inter-Satellite Optical Wireless Communication Link

Inter-satellite optical wireless communication (IsOWC) links are expected to be commonly used for future generation networks for transferring data through low earth orbit (LEO) satellite and geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellite. In this work, we created a link from ground station to LEO satellite at a range of 2000 km and an IsOWC link between LEO and GEO satellite at a distance of 40,000 km based on a regenerative relay. The LEO satellite works as the relay between ground station and the GEO satellite. In comparison to conventional amplifier-based relays, our proposed regenerator-based relay at LEO satellite proved to have lower intensity fluctuations on the optical signals. The designed regenerator is built on an EAM modulator and its performance is observed under various turbulent conditions such as low, medium and strong. In case of strong turbulence; the results showed a decrease of 3.5 dB in the received optical power compared to the conventional amplifier-based relay.