McMaster University

Purpose

Mitigation of atmospheric fluctuations is an absolute necessity for the full benefits of high bandwidth (> 1 Tbs) satellite-based optical communications to be realized. For observational astronomy, the impact of atmospheric fluctuations is well-managed by the implementation of adaptive optics, which is now a mature technology. For satellite-based optical communications, the same solution is not sufficient to mitigate the impact of atmospheric fluctuations in the high turbulence regime, particularly for high bandwidth applications. In particular, a high degree of phase recovery is required in order to fully benefit from a large collection area while also enabling optical focusing to a diffraction-limited spot as required for high bandwidth coherent optical processing. In the Project, new optical detection systems and signal processing approaches suitable for high bandwidth satellite-based optical communications will be developed.