Simulation of BPSK Costas loop for optical inter satellite link

With the development of high resolution cameras for Earth observation applications, there is increasing demand on a high data rate Satellite communication link. Free Space Optical (FSO) communication is a suitable candidate for such high data rate communication and offers several advantages. An Inter-Satellite link (ISL) utilizing the BPSK modulated optical link provides a viable solution to such challenge. Furthermore, homodyne coherent reception of BPSK modulated optical link provides the best receiver sensitivity when compared to any other modulation schemes. In view of this, simulation and analysis of optical carrier recovery using optical Costas loop for homodyne BPSK receiver is carried out using MATLAB Simulink software.

I. Introduction

Satellites are placed in different orbits in space catering to the various applications such as remote sensing, navigation, communication etc. Earth observation satellites with limited visibility to ground station pose a great challenge to make this data available on the ground in real-time. The data thus generated on the earth observation satellites has increased accordingly and hence requires increased data transmission rates.