Experimental Investigation Of The Influence Of Tracking Errors On The Performance Of Free-Space Laser Links

A model is described for analyzing the burst error probability and the tracking error statistics of two mutally tracking optical transceivers. The calculations are based on the tracking error statistics of a single "non-coupled" transceiver. It is shown that, for mutually tracking transceivers, the tracking error statistics are different to the non-coupled case, leading to an increase of the burst error probability. A testbed configuration is proposed for the experimental evaluation of both the tracking and data channel performance. Preliminary experimental results on the tracking error statistics of a coupled two-transceiver system show good agreement with the calculations.