Energy Consumption of GEO-to-ground Beaconless Link Acquisition Against Random Vibration with Coherent Detection

TL;DR

This paper analyzes and optimizes the energy consumption of GEO-to-ground optical link acquisition without beacon signals, demonstrating that dual-scan mode is more efficient than scan-stare and that beaconless acquisition significantly reduces energy use.

Contribution

It provides a novel theoretical model for beaconless link acquisition energy consumption and compares dual-scan and scan-stare modes, showing the advantages of beaconless techniques.

Findings

Dual-scan mode reduces acquisition energy compared to scan-stare.

Beaconless acquisition consumes only 6% of the energy compared to beacon-based methods.

Optimal beam divergence angle is the minimum modulation capability.

Abstract

The GEO satellite maintains good synchronization with the ground, reducing the priority of acquisition time in the establishment of the optical link. Whereas energy is an important resource for the satellite to execute space missions, the consumption during the acquisition process rises to the primary optimization objective. However, no previous studies have addressed this issue. Motivated by this gap, this paper first model the relationship between the transmitted power and the received SNR in the coherent detection system, with the corresponding single-field acquisition probability, the acquisition time is then calculated, and the closed-form expression of the multi-field acquisition energy consumption is further derived in scan-stare mode. Then for dual-scan technique, through the induction of the probability density function of acquisition energy, it is transformed into the equivalent form of scan-stare, thereby acquiring acquisition energy. Subsequently, optimizations are performed on these two modes. The above theoretical derivations are verified through Monte Carlo simulations. Consequently, the acquisition energy of dual-scan is lower than that of scan-stare, with the acquisition time being about half of the latter, making it a more efficient technique. Notably, the optimum beam divergence angle is the minimum that the laser can modulate, and the beaconless acquisition energy is only 6\% of that with the beacon, indicating that the beaconless is a better strategy for optical link acquisition with the goal of energy consumption optimization.