Optical links between Earth and space have the potential to overcome bandwidth limits and spectrum regulatory challenges inherent to legacy RF communication. Free space optical communication is on the verge of commercial breakthrough for LEO satellites, feeder links to GEO satellites have been proven to work with lasers, and a new wave of lunar exploration sees its communication challenges solved with optical signals.
Digital Optical Ground Station
WORK Microwave’s Digital Optical Ground Station
WORK Microwave’s Digital Optical Ground Station (DOG) suite is a revolutionary end-to-end solution to establish multi Gbaud & Gbit optical links for both space-to-earth and earth-to-space directions. It is a worldwide unique, field-proven commercial solution for ground segment.
WORK Microwave offers all components independently, or you can choose to take advantage of our System Integration Services.
Benefit from comprehensive Digital Optical Ground Station advantages:
- One stop-shop solution to save time, reduce cost and with fast technical support: We offer all components, sub-systems, system integration and logistic services.
- Customization depending on your requirements and applications: Design might be capable of Rx-only, or Tx/Rx. Also different optical wavelengths, waveforms, bandwidths are possible.
- Compact solution: DOG needs minimal space for installation of the entire station and indoor equipment, as optical modem, optical detector and optical amplifiers are designed with built-in modules, converters and amplifiers.
- High speed and symbol rate: DOG supports symbol rate up to 10 Gbaud and data rate up to 10 Gbps.
- Future-ready standards: DOG is compliant with both CCSDS (141.0-B, 142.0-B ) and SDA standards and is upgradable for future extensions like HPE (High Photon Efficiency).
- Highest quality standards: Like all other WORK Microwave’s products and solutions, DOG has a 3 year warranty.
As far as one can see: Optical Communication enhances many applications
Instead of dealing with increasing bandwidth demands in a crowded and regulated spectrum, optical communication has the potential to provide more throughput with less effort. Non real-time critical data downlinks can easily leverage geo redundancy in Earth stations to overcome the occasional obstruction of the optical path due to weather conditions.
A-Series DOG suite products at a ground station network to support commercial and scientific missions transferring data from Deep Space back to Earth. First missions carrying respective optical payloads in 2024 and beyond are yet to come. WORK Microwave is proud to be part of the ecosystem that will revolutionize the exploration of outer space.
EDRS has paved the way. Increasing bandwidth demand in communication will make optical gateway links a powerful tool in the support of RF infrastructure, be it as overlay system or using geo redundancy the combination of optical and RF communication will provide the throughputs that make satellite systems a prime network option.
Due to its strong security capabilities, optical communication is a natural choice as a critical technology for military communication. Satellite-to-satellite connections via laser are already in the test phase, so it is only a matter of time before the technology is also used for satellite-to-earth connections.
The DOG suite comes all in one
WORK Microwave’s optical communication engineers have created a very compact and optimized ground station architecture to eliminate large area need, complexity, extra converters and amplifiers. Our all-indoor equipment can be mounted in small rack cabinets.
The components of DOG suite are:
- a multi-mission optical modem supporting both hard-decision and soft-decision decoding
- an optical detector
- an optical amplifier
- a telescope sub-system from one of our renowned partners
Turnkey Digital Optical Ground Station Services
Upon request, WORK Microwave provides system integration services for the Digital Optical Ground Station (DOG).
Our DOG system integration services include:
- program management
- customized system design
- link budget analysis
- site selection (based on site survey and meteorological analysis)
- civil works (soil analysis, construction of special concrete platform for telescope to ensure high accuracy operation)
- installation
- site acceptance tests
- training
From Space to Earth: WORK Microwave’s Digital Optical Ground Station revolutionizes Laser Communication
WORK Microwave’s Digital Optical Ground Station (DOG) has a successful heritage and has been deployed in various projects worldwide.
In 2021, the company launched its Digital Optical Ground Station (DOG) product suite, including the AR-80-OPT Optical Multi-Mission Receiver and the FSOD1 Free Space Optical Detector.
Both products were designed to support early implementations of the then-emerging CCSDS 142.0-B-1 standard, and they represent the world’s first multi-mission support solutions capable of receiving and processing optical communication signals from space to Earth up to 3 Gbps.
WORK Microwave is currently developing the DOG-M1 multi-mission optical modem as part of the DOG suite of products. This modem will be capable of receiving, decoding, and buffering CCSDS standardized free space optical waveforms. It is being developed within ESA’s ScyLight project to allow for technology de-risking and functional testing of the technology required for the DOG-M1 modem.
WORK Microwave’s Optical Ground Station technology has gained recognition from the industry, as seen in its recent inclusion in NASA’s “State-of-the-Art of Small Spacecraft Technology” report. The very narrow, tight laser beams (compared to RF wavelengths) result in the ability to deliver the same amount of signal power to much smaller collecting areas. The reduction in antenna size applies for ground and space receivers, which allows for power, size and mass reductions.
