Experimental verification and theory for an eight-element multiple-aperture equal-gain coherent laser receiver for laser communications

    Authors

    A. R. Weeks; J. Xu; R. R. Phillips; L. C. Andrews; C. M. Stickley; G. Sellar; J. S. Stryjewski;J. E. Harvey

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Appl. Optics

    Keywords

    Optics

    Abstract

    The detection and processing of laser communication signals are affected by the finding induced onto these signals by atmospheric turbulence. One method of reducing this fading is to use an array of detectors in which each of the detector outputs are added together coherently. We present experimental verification and theory of a 1.06 mu m eight-element coherent receiver used to mitigate the effects of fading over a l-km outdoor range. The carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) was measured on a single channel and was then compared with the CNR obtained from the coherent sum of the eight channels. The increase of the mean CNR for the coherent sum as compared with a single aperture was observed proportional to the number of the apertures under different conditions of atmospheric turbulence. The measured mean CNR gain fitted the theoretical prediction well when the laser intensity fluctuations followed the gamma distribution. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.

    Journal Title

    Applied Optics

    Volume

    37

    Issue/Number

    21

    Publication Date

    1-1-1998

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    4782

    Last Page

    4788

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000074828300033

    ISSN

    0003-6935

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