Liquid lens beam steering and environmental testing for the miniature optical steered antenna for inter-satellite communication

We investigate the feasibility of using a series of deformable liquid lenses to achieve wide-angle beam steering for CubeSat laser communication (lasercom) crosslinks. Liquid lenses are lenses that can non-mechanically alter focal length based on an applied voltage or current. We evaluate two commercial liquid lens manufacturers, Corning Varioptic and Optotune. Corning Varioptic lenses rely on the principle of electrowetting for lens actuation, while Optotune lenses are driven by a voice coil. For steering, a liquid lens is placed offset from the optical axis. Varying the liquid lens focal length will cause the beam to steer in 1D by refraction, but also causes a change in beam divergence. Adding an on-axis focusing liquid lens allows this beam divergence to be controlled dynamically. Adding a second off-axis liquid lens, displaced in the other axis, creates 2D steering. A fisheye lens can then amplify the steering cone to full hemispherical coverage [1].

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Fogle, Faisal A.(Faisal Adam)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kerri L. Cahoy.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

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

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127076

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/127076