Design and development of power efficient satellite optical links

Space technologies, data and services have become indispensable in our everyday lives. Navigation, global communication and Earth observation are the most prominent examples of such reliance owing to satellites' global coverage. All these services are critically dependent on the communication links between the satellite in orbit, ground user and control stations. Satellite communication at non-geostationary orbits is widely considered one of the next major revolutions in satellite communication. This project is proposed in the emerging area of ultra-dense low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations which demand developing high capacity satellite links to allow for low-latency connectivity between ground users which can be very sparsely located. The work will focus on optical communication technologies, which bring unprecedentedly high levels of transmission rates, data security and resilience. More specifically, the project concerns developing opto-electronics devices for high data-rate optical links which are suitable for the space environment. The student will be working on the design and development of a photonics sub-system to be used in satellite optical communication links.