干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Optical scintillation is an effect that limits the performance of many optical systems including imagers and free space optical communication links. The Naval Research Laboratory is undertaking a series of measurement campaigns of optical scintillation in a variety of environments. In December of 2010 measurements were made over a one week period in the desert at China Lake, CA. The NRL TATS system was used to measure time resolved scintillation over a variety of different ranges and terrains. This data has been used to determine fade rate and duration as a function of weather and link margin. Temporal correlation of fades has also been calculated. This data allows simulation of a variety of communication protocols and the effects of those protocols on link throughput. In this paper we present a comparison of different protocols for both direct and retroreflector links