Hybrid OCSS/RF system employing wavelength division multiplexing and modulation transmitter diversity

Abstract Inter-satellite optical free space communication enabling radio frequencies (RF) is prevalent nowadays due to high speed, prolonged reach, and improved security. Inter-channel interference is the predominant performance deteriorating limitation in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) based optical communication-based satellite systems (OCSS). Therefore, in this work, a hybrid 16 × 40 Gbps OCSS system with 10 GHz RF signals is presented employing transmitter diversity. Further, three different arrangements of NRZ, AMI, and NRZ-AMI are investigated in terms of log bit error rate (BER) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over a 30,000 km link distance. Results revealed that the transmitter diversity-based NRZ-AMI arrangement offered the best performance followed by AMI non-transmitter diversity system. The proposed system is flexible, economical, and easy to realize.