Adaptive optics pre-correction for optical feeder links

Abstract

For the next generation of very high throughput communication satellites, TNO and DLR envision optical free-space communication between ground stations and geostationary telecommunication satellites to replace the traditional RF links. To mitigate atmospheric turbulence, an Adaptive Optics (AO) system will be used to apply uplink pre-correction. OFELIA, an ground terminal breadboard was developed to demonstrate the pre-correction principle over an realistic link. Currently, integration tests have been performed to verify the AO performance. Also a laser link experiment over 10 km distance has already been established, in a scenario relevant to ground-to-satellite links. The paper shows that AO is clearly beneficial for the downlink performance. In addition the first preliminary experimental results of the pre-correction show it is also beneficial for the uplink.