Investigations of Bit rates in Optical Intersatellite Wireless Links

Optical communications are evolved from lengthy optical fibers to powerful wireless communications. Laser communication is now able to send information at data rates up to several Gbps and at distance of thousands of kilometers apart. This has open up the idea to adapt optical wireless communication technology into space technology, hence Intersatellite Optical Wireless Communication (IsOWC) is developed. The number of satellites orbiting Earth increase year by year, a network between the satellites provides a method for them to communicate with each other. The system performance including Q factor, bit rates, receiver sensitivity and distance of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) links were analyzed. The intersatellite link was modeled and simulated using a commercial optical system simulator named OptiSystem 12.0 by Optiwave.