A 2 × 40 Gbps Mode Division Multiplexing Based Inter-satellite Optical Wireless Communication (IsOWC) System

The incorporation of optical wireless communication technology in inter-satellite links, also referred as inter-satellite optical wireless communication (IsOWC) is a key technology capable of providing seamless high-speed information transportation all around the globe. The key factors affecting the IsOWC link performance are transmission range and pointing error angle losses (space turbulence). Further, mode division multiplexing (MDM) is regarded as a spectral-efficient cost-effective technology to transmit high-speed information by exploiting distinct spatial modes of a single laser beam. This works reports the modeling and simulative investigation of a novel MDM based IsOWC link where two independent 40 Gbps channels are transported over distinct Laguerre Gaussian modes of a single laser beam at 6000 km transmission range. Further, we numerically investigate the proposed MDM based IsOWC link performance under the impact of pointing error angle losses and demonstrate a faithful transmission up to 2 μrad pointing error angle. Based on these insights, we propose an IsOWC link tailored for high-speed spectral-efficient information transmission.