Pointing Error Angle Effect on the Performance of 10 Gbps Ultra-Long Satellite Optical Wireless Communication

This paper presents the performance analysis of 10 Gbps Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Inter-satellite Optical Wireless Communication (Is-OWC) system. In such systems, the propagation of light (visible or infrared) takes place in Free Space Optics (FSO), in order to transmit data between satellites in the same or different orbits. It is one of the important applications of FSO technology which will be widely deployed in the world in the future due to its many advantages offering high bandwidth, high data rate, small weight, low power and cost compared to the existing microwave satellite communications. However, the limit of this type of link is the difficulty of precise pointing between the transmitters and receivers due to satellites vibrations, which can cause a failure of reception of the laser beam. Here, the effect of pointing error angle on LEO satellite transmission performance as a function of transmitter output power, line coding techniques (Non Return to Zero, NRZ ; Return to Zero, RZ) and inter-satellite distance was analyzed using OptiSystem software simulation. The outcomes showed that the proposed system can accomplishes successfully transmission up to 4500 Km with an acceptable Bit Error Rate (BER) threshold.