ANALYSIS OF OPTICAL PULSE DISTORTION THROUGH CLOUDS FOR SATELLITE TO EARTH ADAPTIVE OPTICAL COMMUNICATION

Clouds, if part of an optical communication channel, cause temporal wi dening and attenuation of optical pulse power. Space optical communica tion from satellite to earth (ground or airplane) occasionally involve s clouds as part of the optical channel. Here, based upon Monte Carlo simulations, mathematical models are developed for the temporal charac teristics of optical pulse propagation through clouds. These include t emporal impulse response, transfer function, bandwidth, received energ y and bode analysis. The method presented here can be used as an inclu sive framework for developing other mathematical models of other chara cteristics of radiation propagating through clouds, as required. Sever al conclusions of this work are obtained. One is that simple predictio n models can be applied to adaptive methods of optical communication. Another is that using shorter wavelengths such as 0.532 mum yields lea st temporal widening and maximum received power, and is thus preferabl e for optical communication. In addition, the simulation results stron gly support the use of the double gamma function model to best describ e optical pulse spread through clouds. This work is the first, to the best of the authors' knowledge, to present a comprehensive analysis of space optical communication through clouds.