Development of reprogrammable high frame-rate detector devices for laser communication pointing, acquisition and tracking

Terita Norton; Kenneth Conner; Richard Covington; Hung Ngo; Christine Rink

doi:10.1117/12.764407

14 February 2008 Development of reprogrammable high frame-rate detector devices for laser communication pointing, acquisition and tracking

Terita Norton, Kenneth Conner, Richard Covington, Hung Ngo, Christine Rink

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6877, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XX; 68770N (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.764407
Event: Lasers and Applications in Science and Engineering, 2008, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

A Two Terminal Laser Communication Test Bed has been developed at The Aerospace Corporation. This paper presents the design and preliminary results of a reprogrammable detector within the Test Bed for use in pointing, acquisition, and tracking between a Satellite-to-Satellite Laser Communication link. The detector may be commanded by an emulated spacecraft Command & Data Handling subsystem to switch between full-array scanning and "small sized" N x M pixel Field of View (FOV) for high-rate laser tracking. The approach follows a parallel path to implement the signal processing algorithm on two different hardware resources: a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and a Digital Signal Processor (DSP). The focus of this effort is to present a methodology for testing and evaluating various techniques for advanced focal plane array (FPA) hardware, as well as sensor FPA control, image processing and laser beam X & Y position algorithms.

Citation Download Citation

Terita Norton, Kenneth Conner, Richard Covington, Hung Ngo, and Christine Rink "Development of reprogrammable high frame-rate detector devices for laser communication pointing, acquisition and tracking", Proc. SPIE 6877, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XX, 68770N (14 February 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.764407

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