Spatial tracker for an air-to-ground laser communication link

In this thesis, I designed several of the hardware components of a spatial tracker for an air-to-ground laser communication system; these include a PWM switching amplifier and the control systems for driving the primary steering and tracking elements required in the acquisition and maintenance of an optical communication link. The hardware was designed for low size, weight, and power (SWaP), low cost, and easy system integration. A performance analysis is presented comparing the designed hardware to a benchmark lasercom system developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Near, William G

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• James K. Roberge and Robert J. Murphy.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77033

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/77033