| 摘要 |
An improved system for acquiring and tracking an optical beam. In the illustrative application, the inventive system is used to facilitate optical communication between two satellites and provides an improved technique for acquiring and tracking two optical beams. The illustrative embodiment includes an optical transmitter (26) mounted on the first satellite for transmitting a first optical beam. The beam is scanned over a predetermined area in a predetermined pattern at a predetermined rate. When the beam is detected at the second satellite, the receiver at the second satellite generates a signal indicative of the time at which the beam is detected. This signal is used to modulate a second beam transmitted by the second satellite. The second beam is scanned over a predetermined area in a predetermined pattern at a predetermined rate. A receiver (34, 35, 38, 40, 42) mounted on the first satellite receives the second beam and modulates the first beam with a second signal indicative of the time at which the second beam is detected. Processors (38, 40, 18, 20, 22, 24) on each satellite adjust the scan of the transmitted beam to nutate about the line-of-sight to the remote receiver to track the acquired beam. Thereafter, satellite-to-satellite communication may be effected by continuously detecting and correcting pointing errors and injecting the corrective signals into the normal data stream.
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