Double-ended Optical Beam Tracking

In this paper, the problem of tracking mobile terminals in wireless optical communication applications is addressed. The problem arises due to the fact that the communication terminals are not stationary; hence the line of sight (LOS) has to be constantly maintained. Since communicating through light requires the terminals to be in LOS with each other, the control problem of tracking the incoming optical beam to deep the terminals in LOS with each other must be solved. An idea for laser guidance systems is utilized to address the problem where an "Ecartometry" calculation is carried out in order to determine the shift form LOS and produce control signals. A software package that models and simulates double-ended optical beam tracking for a wireless optical communication system has been developed to test the proposed tracking mechanism. In this current form, the program simulates two real life communication scenarios in which two vehicles move in convoy in single file or in parallel. Simulation results obtained form the software packages are presented foe performance evaluation.