Rad-Hard Boost for Space Communications

  • Published
  • By Chunte Lu
  • Directed Energy
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, New Mexico --  Addressing the Air Force's mounting need for reliable space assets with increased operational magnitude, AFRL worked with industry partner Photon-X, LLC, to develop an optical amplification capability that increases communications bandwidth and otherwise improves the power output and dependability of satellites, lasers, and similar equipment subjected to harsh space extremes. The company created its compact, radiation-hardened, or rad-hard, high-power optical amplifier technology with Small Business Innovation Research funding support.

HPOAs play a key role in optical communications, radar, sensors, high-speed signal processing, and other advanced spaced-based photonic applications. Given the 20-year useful operational lifetime of communications satellites, for example, the fidelity of these devices--especially in a radiation environment--is crucial to consistent, cost-effective delivery of increased bandwidth for military purposes. Whereas radiation exposure causes conventional, rare-earth-doped fibers to exhibit ionization-induced color defects that cause pump light and input signal absorption and, in turn, degrade amplifier gain and noise figure properties, Photon-X's HPOAs are highly reliable in withstanding--and performing in--the rigors of space. The company leveraged proprietary techniques to upgrade conventionally doped, commercially available fibers for space-based application, with the resultant (i.e., hardened and shielded) modules providing twice the utility of the commercial counterparts, which offer no such enhancements.

Compared to existing, radio-frequency-based satellite communications, a means for optical communications translates to a threefold order of magnitude increase in bandwidth capacity. Beyond its undeniable impact on aerospace and defense pursuits, the SBIR-enabled HPOA technology--with its light weight and small footprint, efficient circuitry, tolerance to mechanical stress, low power consumption and heat dissipation, and improved reliability and safety--promises to influence a number of unique commercial opportunities as well.