Free space optical communication tracking with electronic boresight compensation and co-boresighted transmit and receive optics

1. A Free Space Optical (FSO) communication unit, comprising:

co-boresighted beam steering unit configured to transmit and receive optical beams along a coincident path external to the FSO communication unit;

a separator to direct the transmit optical beam and the receive optical beam along separate paths;

a transmit beam source for transmitting the transmit optical beam towards a direction;

a receiver beam detector configured to determine a position of the receive optical beam on the receiver beam detector;

at least one optical component between the transmit beam source and the receiver beam detector; and

a Pointing, Acquisition, and Tracking (PAT) control system,

wherein the PAT control system controls a direction of the transmit optical beam, and directs the transmit optical beam based on the position of the receive optical beam by driving the transmit optical beam to be directed parallel to the receive optical beam based on the position of the receive optical beam minus an offset command,

the offset command value calculated for the FSO communication unit based on a boresight error between the position of the receive optical beam and the direction of the transmit optical beam, the boresight error caused by the at least one optical component between the transmit beam source and the receiver beam detector.

2. The FSO communication unit of claim 1 , further comprising one or more optical components to create the receive optical beam such that a diameter of the receive optical beam on the receiver beam detector is 40-60% of a diameter of the receiver beam detector.

3. The FSO communication unit of claim 2 , wherein the one or more optical components includes a diffuser.

4. The FSO communication unit of claim 1 , wherein the co-boresighted beam steering unit comprises co-boresighted FSO Tx/Rx optics such that the transmit and receive optical beams are directed along an approximately coincident path internal to the FSO communication unit.

5. The FSO communication unit of claim 1 , wherein the PAT control system communicates with the co-boresighted beam steering unit to direct the co-boresighted beam steering unit such that the position of the receive optical beam is located at a non-centered value that results in the transmit optical beam being properly pointed coincident with the receive optical beam external to the FSO communication unit.

6. The FSO communication unit of claim 1 , wherein the receiver beam detector is a quad-cell photo detector.

7. The FSO communication unit of claim 6 , further comprising a second receiver beam detector that has a detection surface with a response independent of location of Rx beam incidence.

8. The FSO communication unit of claim 7 , wherein the separator is a dichromic beam splitter to separate the coincident path of the transmit optical beam and the receive optical beam.

9. The FSO communication unit of claim 8 , further comprising a beam splitter such that the receive optical beam is split between the receiver beam detector and the second receiver beam detector.

10. An FSO communication system, comprising the FSO communication unit of claim 1 and a remote FSO communication unit separated over a distance and directed toward each other to communicate data over a line of sight, further comprising a communication link between the FSO communication units such that a Tx/Rx boresight error may be calculated for the FSO communication unit from an offset detected on the receiver beam detector of the FSO communication unit when the transmit optical beam of the FSO communication unit is centered on a beam detector of the remote FSO communication unit.

11. A method of sending data from an FSO communication unit on a transmitted optical beam at a first wavelength and receiving data at the FSO unit on a received optical beam at a second wavelength different from the first wavelength, comprising:

aligning paths of the transmitted optical beam with the received optical beam such that the paths extend through an aperture and are coincident exterior to the FSO unit;

calculating a Tx/Rx boresight error between a position of the received optical beam and a direction of the transmitted optical beam, the Tx/Rx boresight error caused by at least one optical component between a transmit beam source and a position sensitive alignment sensor; and

positioning the transmitted optical beam to be parallel to the received optical beam according to an alignment of the received optical beam, wherein the alignment of received optical beam is based on the position of the received optical beam minus the Tx/Rx boresight error.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising separating the transmitted optical beam and the received optical beam to traverse separate paths within a portion of the FSO unit.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the alignment is performed comprising the position sensitive alignment sensor that can be used to determine the position of the received optical beam relative to its center.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising adding a value proportional to the Tx/Rx boresight error to a signal from the position sensitive alignment sensor to create an adjusted signal that offsets the Tx/Rx boresight error, and positioning the transmitted optical beam by centering the adjusted signal such that the received optical beam is offset from center by the Tx/Rx boresight error.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising forming the receive optical beam such that a diameter of the receive optical beam on the position sensitive alignment sensor is 40-50% of a diameter of the position sensitive alignment sensor.

16. The method of claim 11 , further comprising an electronic boresight compensation (EBC) approach to compensate for the Tx/Rx boresight error.