Transportable Optical Ground Station for Free-Space Laser Communications

The DLR Transportable Optical Ground Station has been built to demonstrate optical free-space communications in various application scenarios (satellite-ground, balloon-ground, ground-ground) anywhere in the world. In addition to optical communications, several atmospheric measurement instruments (Differential Image Motion Monitor, Turbulence Profiler) are included to study the influence of atmospheric turbulence on the optical link. A description of the measurement instruments is given and results of the turbulence instruments (Fried parameter r0, Cn2 profile) are presented for a stratospheric balloon downlink in Sweden, August 2005.