Heterodyne Spatial Tracking System for Optical Space Communication

Design considerations for an optical spatial tracking system for both coherent and noncoherent heterodyne detection are addressed. Heterodyne detection systems are much less susceptible to background radiation and device noise than conventional direct detection systems. In addition, the angle discriminator profile in a heterodyne detection system can be tailored via the local oscillator spatial distribution. An optimal LO distribution is described and its performance is compared to some Suboptimal distributions. It is shown that an ideal quadrant detector can achieve near optimal performance, since the LO effectively acts like a continuum of detectors. Cramer-Rao tracking bounds and other performance criteria are given under the conservative assumption that the angular process to be tracked is a single-pole process. The method used is directly applicable to other types of angular processes. Experimental verification of some of the basic concepts is presented.