Methods, systems and devices for free-space optical communications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12074639-B2
Application number	US-202217835042-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 8, 2022
Priority date	Dec 13, 2019
Publication date	Aug 27, 2024
Grant date	Aug 27, 2024

Abstract

Methods, systems, and devices for free-space optical communications. An aircraft includes a flat optical communication terminal on an external surface of the aircraft, the flat optical communication terminal being configured to communicate with a ground station via a free-space optical communication link.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A flat optical terminal comprising:
a plurality of functional layers in a layer stack, with each functional layer implementing a different function of optical compensation and beam processing, the layer stack comprising:
a first layer including an optical phase array;
a second layer stacked on top of the first layer including a liquid crystal modulator or an array of micro-electromechanical elements; and
a third layer stacked on top of the second layer including a polarization grating.

2. The flat optical terminal of claim 1 , wherein the layer stack further comprises a modulation/demodulation layer coupled to the optical phase array in the first layer.

3. The flat optical terminal of claim 1 , wherein the optical phase array includes multiple antenna elements binned in one or more two-dimensional antenna blocks.

4. The flat optical terminal of claim 3 , wherein each of the antenna blocks is connected to a common bus and coupled to a block-associated phase tuning element.

5. The flat optical terminal of claim 1 , wherein the optical phase array includes multiple rows of antenna elements connected in parallel to each other to a common bus.

6. The flat optical terminal of claim 5 , wherein each common bus is configured to be fed via a single phase tuning element per common bus.

7. The flat optical terminal of claim 1 , wherein the multiple antenna elements are overlaid with flat optical lenses.

8. The flat optical terminal of claim 7 , wherein the flat optical lenses are microlenses or Newtonian telescopes made from flat meta-lenses.

9. The flat optical terminal of claim 7 , wherein each antenna element is overlaid with a single flat optical lens.

10. The flat optical terminal of claim 7 , wherein subsets of multiple antenna elements are overlaid with a common flat optical lens.

Assignees

• Airbus Sas

Inventors

• Comin Alberto
• Multerer Thomas
• Anderson Andrew A
• Tepper Jan
• Schleicher Bernd
• Drexler Andreas
• Gimeno Martín Alejandro
• Shortt Kevin

Classifications

• H04B10/1123

  Bidirectional transmission · CPC title

• G02B26/0833

  the reflecting element being a micromechanical device, e.g. a MEMS mirror, DMD (G02B26/0825 takes precedence; micromechanical devices in general B81B) · CPC title

• H01Q3/38

  the phase-shifters being digital · CPC title

• H01Q5/42

  using two or more imbricated arrays (H01Q5/49 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H01Q1/286

  substantially flush mounted with the skin of the craft · CPC title