Evaluation of optical ranging and frequency transfer for the Kepler system : preliminary laboratory tests

Abstract

The adoption of optical inter-satellite links in future evolutions of Global Navigation Satellite Systems could enable key capabilities such as intra-system communication, time-transfer and precise ranging. This work reports on the development of a laboratory demonstrator designed to verify the performance of two-way optical links in a controlled environment. First test results on the performance of bi-directional frequency transfer and single directional ranging over a 30 m free-space link are reported.