Multifunctional optical terminals for microsatellite clusters: Design tradeoffs

Summary We study optical terminals with both communication and ranging capabilities for their potential use in short range free-space applications, typically encountered within a cluster of microsatellites. For our considerations we assume satellites with a unit mass between 10 kg and 100 kg, with mutual distances on the order of a few km, and per link data rates range from a few kbits/s to some 100 Mbit/s. We discuss possible network topologies and multiple access methods, andcompare the performance characteristics of different intensity modulation formats, taking into account not only the task of communication but also that of accurate intra-cluster distance measurement. Our considerations revealbasic tradeoffs to be observed when designing such multifunctional optical terminals.