System Analysis of Non-Mechanical Compact Optical Transceiver for Wireless Communications with a VCSEL Array

Abstract

Compact, light, and low power consumption communications equipment is required for the small satellites. For such restriction of the resources in the spacecrafts, we propose a non-mechanical, compact optical terminal equipped with a two-dimensional laser array. A laser beam is transmitted by selecting the laser pixel corresponding to the direction of the optical signal received from the counter terminal. The beams are not deflected by a mechanical mirror. Instead, they are turned on and off one after the other in accordance with the direction from which optical signals are received. Multiple-input multipleoutput operation is possible in this configuration. The nonmechanical transceiver can facilitate a reduction in the size of the optical communications system. This paper presents the basic concept of a non-mechanical compact transceiver with a two-dimensional laser array for optical wireless communications.