Pulse positioned differential phase shift keying for high data rate satellite optical communications

In this paper, a pulse positioned-differential phase shift keying technique is proposed for providing high data rate in satellite optical communications. Polarization-rotation based DPSK is employed to avoid the use of delay-line interferometers, which is a major impairment for multi-rate DPSK. Furthermore, a novel modulation format suitable for polarization-rotation based DPSK is proposed for higher data rates. The performance enhancement of the proposed technique is theoretically demonstrated compared to conventional differential phase shift keying. The simulation results show that a high data rate could be obtained with the proposed technique. Therefore, high data rate and multi-rate differential phase shift keying can be realized using the proposed technique for next-generation satellite optical communication.