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Laser System Set To Revolutionize Future Aircraft, Satellite Data Links (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A new laser system, dubbed HYPERION, promises to improve the transmission of data from aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and orbiting satellites to ground stations. The optical system, developed by a team of Innovate UK researchers, has been designed to send critical information more securely, rapidly and efficiently than traditional radio frequency (RF) methods. Suggested applications for HYPERION include helping UAVs involved in disaster monitoring and other humanitarian projects to quickly offload detailed data back to the ground for analysis. The system could also be applied in future airline systems to transmit vast amounts of technical data collected by on-board sensors to ground stations — a process which could help speed up maintenance procedures and significantly cut turnaround times.
System development was delayed recently when developers were put in jail for shining lasers at flying aircraft. More at 11...
Would this have been something for Iridium and other satellite phone operators? It would be interesting to finally get a technology that could wipe all the mobile phone masts (also known as 'cell towers' in Trump Land) off the face of the earth. What kind of bandwidth can these links achieve?
a cooler name than HYPERION?
From their website,
Our MRR based on Multiple Quantum Well (MQW) technology was recently tested in our labs and achieved a data rate of 40Mbps over a range of 5m
- no word on what data rate this test achieved...
Does it fall back to RF?
The laser is irrelevant, its just the vector they are using to get a coherent beam rather than the typical pattern of radiation associated with RF operations.
A better Yagi antenna is really all they've done. And it could work great ... depending on the particular atmospheric conditions at the time and what frequencies they are using. But really, alignment is the biggest issue I see here.
This isn't even actually new. I use a directed beam for my drone all the time (Again, YAGI), do it at home with hobby grade components. Wouldn't take much to make it more accurate and track better, other than money. The result however is that I'd be able to ... well, do less than I can do now since I can't shoot a laser through a tree, regardless of the lasers wavelength, where as my radio will penetrate it to some extent and more importantly, will bounce around it.
I'm not really seeing the big data advantage here. You aren't collecting that much data from these things in the first place. You can already stream live HD video for hundreds of miles with COTS equipment that doesn't require EXACT line of site or perfect alignment. Thats what I can get as a hobbiest with very little effort in finding it. (you can get this shit on amazon)
This thing will have an advantage as the distance goes up, but it will also have a distinct disadvantage as the distance goes up. Lasers are better at long range Line of Sight transmission ... but the further out you go, the harder it gets to actually hit the target. At the ranges involved (planetary) RF is a better choice in pretty much every way.
Lasers don't magically make for faster transmission mediums. They aren't magically faster than RF just because they are laser. Laser doesn't travel faster than RF, its just higher frequency so theres more bandwidth available in a small part of the spectrum to play with.
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disaster monitoring and other humanitarian projects...
Well we all admire their intention, this is for war....expect a visit from the DND soon enough...
I thought pointing lasers at planes was bad and would get you arrested. Is it good now?
Sure lasers are a fine transmission medium but they also affect the human eye, so generally not so good for the open air.
See this paper:
http://www.ece.mcmaster.ca/~hranilovic/woc/resources/local/spie2000b.pdf
So ranges greater then a few thousand meters can only be realized in extremely clear weather?
When I read a headline about an advance that is going to revolutionize some area, more often than not that advance fizzles and ends up having very little impact, or no impact whatsoever.
It's just a fluff piece about a line of research that's not finished yet. They've managed to send information over a laser at a distance of 1km, which, while not necessarily easy, is a far cry from low earth orbit.
The whole article is full of phrases like "suggested applications", "could also be applied", "could help speed up", "leading to exciting developments", "will potentially make", and so on and so forth. So in other words, while it's an interesting line of research, they have accomplished nothing so far.
It's just a PR piece meant to drum up research dollars (or pounds) and justify the project's continued existence - according to their web site, they were slated to shut down halfway through last year.
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
Lasers are great fun with cats. You can point them where the cat sees them and watch the cat chase the red dot across the floor. Amazing how fast, how far the dot can move with each twitch of your hand, each heartbeat.
What you can't do is point precisely at a small target and hold that red dot there steadily. The smaller and farther the target, the harder it becomes to maintain that connection. If you were a stationary mechanical device controlled by a computer, it might be easier to keep on target, but still difficult.
The primary advantage of laser communication is privacy. Great for secret stuff. Only those in the path of the beam can know what's transmitted. Yes, our duly appointed government overlords love that shit regardless of the expense.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Sounds like somebody watched legend of the galactic heroes
This is hardly sounds revolutionary, in fact a satellite with laser communications systems has already been launched and is in in preliminary testing for commercial operations (European DAta Relay System (EDRS)). They're primarily focusing on ground/sea to satellite communications but they plan on expanding to various other communications methodologies in the near future.
Laser data links work great until it gets cloudy.
You people claiming links to spacecraft in orbit or a hundred miles away can't be done are clueless. NASA shot a 600Mbps laser link from Earth to the LADEE spacecraft in October 2013. Current spacecraft in orbit already communicate to Earth and between each other via lasers, and have done so for decades.
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/october/nasa-laser-communication-system-sets-record-with-data-transmissions-to-and-from
If you've got the technology, highly directional transmissions have advantages over broadcast, and higher-frequency transmissions (including or perhaps surpassing optical frequencies) have advantages over lower-frequency spectrum. If your civilization is blasting out easily-demodulated radio transmissions across the cosmos, it's not really that advanced.
Couple that with the observation that colonists in another solar system would have to wait years to see Kanye West's lastest tweets, and you have all the answer you need to "where ARE they?" -- they're clustered within the bounds of lower planetary orbit, constantly upgrading the bandwidth of their network connections, desperately trying to make sure that they don't miss the latest cat video.
Who cares? I just say we paint frickin' shart mouths on them, so we can finally put this meme to bed.
I'm sure the folks actually working on this system really didn't appreciate the accompanying artist rendition of a massive laser blast from an evil looking kill-sat orbiting on high.
So, I can now use my high-powered laser-pointer to light up passing aircraft and not be arrested?
Cool. I'll start today!
NASA's Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration project demonstrated the concept back in 2013. There is a follow up project called LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration). The only difference I see here is that the brits are using absorptive coating instead of optical telescopes.
Nelson refers to traditional RF communications, which can be vulnerable to interception and jamming as they rely on an extremely crowded part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
As opposed to single-frequency pulsed laser system whose receivers can be jammed or overwhelmed by attack-emitter arrays sited on the ground, mounted on enemy fighters or on military satellites, made from tiny, energy-efficient off-the-shelf components. It's a cat and mouse game but the mouse is just one small step from becoming bigger than the cat. Jamming light systems is easy and energy-cheap. Jamming radio, especially if you're up against something that is designed to hop across a wide range of frequency, is energy-expensive and component-hard. What's beyond my scope is whether frequency hopping laser systems which are as happy as a pig dipped in shit when they're broadcast through stable optical fiber, could handle and reject spurious and malevolent light sources across the medium of atmosphere.
If it allows airline passengers to do Internet and phones For Entertainment Purposes Only when there is no war on, sure. But for mission-critical uses you'd have to be able to fall back to RF anyway so if your optical pipe buggers up you're left with a sipping straw.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>