An optical simulator for free-space laser long-distance propagation

As a step towards the development of a full scale intersatellite laser communication system, the on-ground simulation experiments and performances validation are necessary in the beginning. In this paper, we designed an optical simulator for on-ground communication performances validation of the free-space laser communication system. The simulator basically consists of a Four-transform lens of big aperture and long focal length and following three optical imaging amplifiers. It becomes possible to evaluate communication-performances of optical terminals by distance transform and background noise simulated. System analysis and simulated experiments show that the simulator is feasible and has the great potential for wide applications.