Short Link optical communication system for high data capacity applications

Testing of sophisticated integrated avionics equipment installed on aircraft, requires high capacity data to be transferred from the signal source to the aircraft. The aircraft performance and safety depends on the quality of the test. Quality and cost of the test depend on speed and reliability of the communication link. For the test purity, cable fiber optic link, or electromagnetic type of communication (RF) can not be used. With the constantly growing amount of transferred data, conventional optical communication can not provide the desired speed and noise immunity. The key objective is to design and develop an economical communication system based on laser technology for a data rate of DC to 1Gbit/s with a high level of data multiplexing. The feasibility to achieve a data rate up to 10 Gbit/s will be investigated during Phase I. The proposed effort utilized the latest achievements in physics and the best expertise optical and photonics technology, communications, semiconductor devices, and electronics, with the purpose to design, develop, and prototype an optical communication system for applications where data capacity and reliability are critical issue. Phase I of R&D investigates the physical model and optimal system configuration, it's parameters, major component, and evaluates system performance, stability and reliability at high data rates.