Communication platform with flexible photonics payload
AssigneeSpace Systems/Loral, Inc.
InventorsHarry Tom, William Hreha
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A communication platform (e.g., a flexible satellite) includes electrical to optical converters configured to convert input electrical signals to input optical signals, an optical switching network connected to the electrical to optical converters that choose which input optical signals to route to which output beams, tunable optical filters (connected to the switching network) that are configured to select programmable sub-bands of the input optical signals to create output optical signals, and optical to electrical converters (connected to the tunable optical filters) that are configured to convert the output optical signals to output electrical signals for the output beams.
Claims21
An apparatus, comprising:
- a spacecraft;
- and
- a payload positioned on the spacecraft, the payload is configured to receive a wireless communication and to select a subset of sub-bands of a first optical signal representing the wireless communication, the selecting being such that bandwidth and center frequency of the sub-bands are independently programmable for each sub-band, the payload is configured to send content of the selected subset of sub-bands to one or more entities off of the spacecraft.
An apparatus, comprising:
- electrical to optical converters configured to convert input electrical signals of the apparatus to input optical signals each representing a corresponding one of the input electrical signals;
- an optical switching network in communication with the electrical to optical converters, the optical switching network is configured to choose which input optical signals to respectively route to respective optical outputs of the optical switching network;
- tunable optical filters, in communication with the optical outputs of the optical switching network, configured to select programmably-defined sub-bands of respective ones of the routed input optical signals to create output optical signals each formed from a subset of the programmably-defined sub-bands;
- and
- optical to electrical converters, in communication with the tunable optical filters, configured to convert the output optical signals to output electrical signals for output from the apparatus.
An apparatus comprising:
- an antenna system that receives incoming electrical gateway signals and transmits output electrical signals;
- electrical to optical converters in communication with the antenna system configured to convert incoming electrical gateway signals to optical gateway signals;
- optical splitters in communication with the electrical to optical converters and configured to make copies of a first subset of the optical gateway signals;
- an optical switching network that is configured to send the first subset of the optical gateway signals to a first set of signal paths and copies of the first subset of the optical gateway signals to a second set of signal paths, the optical switching network is configured to send a second subset of the optical gateway signals to the second set of signal paths such that the second set of signals paths can switchably provide either the copies of the first subset of the optical gateway signals or the second subset of the optical gateway signals;
- a beam forming network in communication with the first set of signal paths and the second set of signal paths, the beam forming network is configured to combine at least a subset of the first set of signal paths and the second set of signal paths to provide output optical signals;
- and
- optical to electrical converters in communication with the beam forming network and the antenna system, the optical to electrical converters are configured to convert the output optical signals to output electrical signals for transmission via the antenna system.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.