Advancing undersea optical communications

MIT News  August 17, 2018 The laser beams are hampered by significant absorption and scattering in the ocean. Researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory are applying narrow-beam laser technology, developed by the Laboratory for the LLCD (Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration), to enable communications between underwater vehicles. A beam from one underwater vehicle is pointed at the receive terminal of a second underwater vehicle. The position calculation is noise sensitive and can quickly accumulate errors of hundreds of meters when a vehicle is submerged for significant periods of time. To overcome this, they implemented an acquisition scanning function that is used to […]