Paper2

LASER COMMUNICATION

AUTHORS

B.Karun Kumar T.Giri Krishna

3 rd Year (E.C .E) 3 rd Year (E.C .E)

karun009@yahoo.com girikrishna_talla@yahoo.co.in

cell: 9290826960 cell: 9290076997

SC IENT INSTITUTE OF TEC HNOLOGY,

IBRAHIMPATNAM, R.R. Dist.

INDEX

• ABSTRAC T

• INTRODUC TION

• HIGH LEVEL DESIGN

• UART-101

• TRANSMIT SUBROUTINE

• ADVANTAGES

• C ONC LUSION

ABSTRACT:

Wireless communication has found astonishingly widespread application. In the future, we will
experience a world in which many differently things are possible with wireless interfaces and all
things are networked. The wireless community is on the verge of the standardization of the Fourth
Generation System. Future multimedia services will require the transmission of very high Data
rates over broadband radio channels.

Lasers have been considered for space communication since their realization in 1960. It was soon
recognized that, although the laser had potential for the transfer data at potentially high rates.

Laser communications offer a viable alternative to RF communications for inters satellite links and
other applications where high-performance links are a necessity.

High data rate small antenna size, narrow beam divergence, and a narrow field of view are
characteristics of laser communications that offer a number of potential advantages for system
design.

The first section of our paper discuss about Introduction for Laser C ommunication. Why should we
use it even though we have other means of communication.

The second section deals with the Hardware Design for this communication system in which its
functionality is briefly explained by using a block diagram.

The last section describes the advantages of laser communication.

INTRODUCTION:

Free Space Optics (FSO) is a telecommunication technology that uses light propagating in free
space to transmit data between two points. The technology is useful where the physical connection
of the transmit and receive locations is difficult, for example in cities where the laying of fibre
optic cables is expensive. Free Space Optics is also used to communicate between space-craft,
since outside of the atmosphere there is little to distort the signal. The optical links usually use
infrared laser light,. IrDA is a very simple form of free-space optical communications. Distances
up to the order of 10 km are possible, but the distance and data rate of connection is highly
dependent on atmospheric conditions.

Laser communications systems are wireless connections through the atmosphere. They work
similarly to fiber optic links, except the beam is transmitted through free space. While the
transmitter and receiver must require line-of-sight conditions, they have the benefit of eliminating
the need for broadcast rights and buried cables. Laser communications systems can be easily
deployed since they are inexpensive, small, low power and do not require any radio interference
studies. The carrier used for the transmission signal is typically generated by a laser diode. Two
parallel beams are needed, one for transmission and one for reception.

Laser communications have been a hot topic lately, as solutions for how to satisfy ever increasing
bandwidth needs are in high demand. Some have suggested that bandwidth could be distributed in
neighborhoods by putting laser communication systems on top of homes and pointing them
towards a common transceiver with a fast link to the Internet. With possible transmit speeds of up
to a gigabit per second, this is an exciting area. Other applications for this technology include
temporary connectivity needs (e.g. sporting events, disaster scenes, or conventions), or space
based communications.

HIGH LEVEL DESIGN

The system can send arbitrary data at 27.7kbps baud . The system illustrated above is set up to
send voice data. The microphone input is conditioned (amplified and biased) so that the full eight
bit range of the analogue to digital converter is utilized. A fair amount of time was spent
optimizing the amplifier for the mic input so as to minimize popping but maximize quality.

Once the digital signal is obtained by the ADC , the MC U passes the signal to the UART. The UART
sets a transmit pin high or low according to the serial protocol. Some conditioning is applied to this
signal as well in order to ensure constant current to the laser.

On the receiver side, the signal is read by a photo transistor. The signal coming off the transistor
is put through a comparator to generate appropriate high and low signals. The UART reads these
signals and generates a byte according to the serial protocol. This byte is applied to a port, sent
through a digital to analogue converter, and applied to a speaker.

HARDWARE
A description of the hardware and circuitry used in this project follows. Resistor, capacitor and
diode values are committed because they need to tuned depending on the hardware used. The
specific use for each component is documented.

Microphone Amplifier

The first step in transmitting sound is to digitize soundwaves. For this we used an electret
microphone purchased from Radtronics. Frequent shoppers at Tito's place downtown know that
finding spec sheets for products there is impossible. The microphone he sold us had three leads,
which after considerable angst we decided were for power, ground, and signal. The signal coming
off the mic was far too low to be read (with any degree of precision) by the analog to digital
converter. So of course, an amplifier is needed. Before the signal is put through the amplifier
however it is first put through a capacitor to remove DC , and then through a voltage divider to
appropriately bias the signal . A LF353 op-amp is used to boost the signal, the gain is adjusted by
the resistors and for the mystery microphone the gain is around 50-100 (depending on how much
popping and how much quality you want).

Laser Driver

After the A/D converter translates the mic signal into 8 bits, the MC U generates the appropriate
bits to send (including start and stop bits) and applies them to the laser driver circuit a 5V and 0V
signals. The BJT in this circuit turns on at 5V and provides the proper current according to the
diode and resistor values.

Receiver

A photo diode detects the laser pulses in a different (distant) location. This signal is put through a
comparator in order to generate solid 5V and 0V values which are applied to the receive pin on
the microcontroller.

Laser Driver

Once the signal is put through the DAC (not shown, it's a simple ladder), it is boosted and low
pass filtered (to improve sound quality).

UART 101

A Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) operates on the premise that one can
transmit an 8-bit (sometimes 9-bit) data message through a single wire link without time
synchronization between source and destination. The resultant single wire link is known as a
Serial Data Link because the bits of the 8-bit message are transmitted in series. The
asynchronous part of the UART (which is what attracted us most to the idea of emulating a UART
in our software) is achieved by sending known bits to denote the beginning and end of the data
message. These bits are called start and stop bits and are 0 and 1 in the UART protocol
respectively. When the UART is not transmitting data it maintains a logical high (1) on the wire.
Thus, when a logical low (0) start bit is transmitted, the receiver knows that a message is being
transmitted and starts “paying attention”. The 8 bits following the start bit are the contents of the
message. The 8 bits are followed always by a logical high (1) stop bit (and in more complicated
implementations a parity bit which we shall ignore for our purposes). In the hardware
implementation of the UART on most Atmel chips the UART samples received bits 3 times in

the middle of the bit and uses a “majority rule” process to determine the value of the bit . By
contrast, our software UART will sample received bits only once in the middle to determine their
value.

Also, another key difference between our software UART and most hardware UARTs is that it is a
half duplex UART. This means that it can only transmit or receive at any given time rather than
both transmit and receive at the same time (full duplex). A full duplex software UART would be
much more complicated and is unnecessary for our application.

The measure of the rate at which bits are transmitted by a UART over a Serial Data Link is known
as a baud rate.

The Transmit Subroutine put()

To transmit a byte (8 bits) over the serial data link we developed a subroutine called put. This
subroutine takes the 8 bits of data in the character variable Txbyte and shifts each bit out on to
the serial data link one at a time starting with the L SB . The data byte desired to be sent should
be placed into Txbyte and then put must be called in order to send that data. It is important to
note that a call to put destroys the contents of Txbyte .

We felt it was a good idea to invert Txbyte at the beginning of the put subroutine and then treat all
0s as 1s and all 1s as 0s in order to make what is shifted into Txbyte when we perform a right
shift (which is a 0) look like a stop bit of value 1. This eliminates some logic at the end of the
subroutine to make a stop bit. We also have a variable called carry which essentially keeps track
of the last bit shifted out of Txbyte and is representative (i.e. the opposite) of the value of the bit
currently being sent. Lastly, we have a variable called bitcnt which is a counter to keep track of
what bit number we are currently sending. It is set to 9 + sb at the beginning of the subroutine
and is decremented each time a bit is sent ( sb is the number of stop bits being used which in the
final version of the code is set to 1).

The first three things we do in put is to set the value of bitcnt , invert Txbyte , and set carry to 1
(for the start bit which should be 0). We then enter a while loop which terminates when bitcnt
reaches 0. Upon entering the loop we send the current bit. This is done by setting the transmit
pin (PORTD.1) to the opposite value of carry. We then want to maintain that value on the pin for
the appropriate amount of time (determined by the desired baud) and so we delay for buadnum
µs (using a call to delay_ us( ) ). We then set carry to the value of the LSB of Txbyte , we shift
Txbyte right 1 place¸ and we decrement bitcnt because we have sent a bit. At this point the loop
will repeat until bitcnt reaches 0 and the stop bit has been sent. The reader should note that the
time it takes to perform any of the logic, branching, shifting, or other calculations in the loop is
accounted for in the delay (by subtracting 1 µs ). We paid very close attention to the resulting
assembler language to determine this correction and we even balanced the number of cycles
required regardless of whether a 1 or a 0 was sent (the reason for the inserted nop ).

Similarly we we gets() subroutine for the receiving side.

ADVANTAGES:

• The main benefit of point-to-point laser connection is that bandwidth is dedicated between the
points, so this can make high-speed communication possible between different places on earth

• The laser communication has no FC requirement, is easy to install and can be safer.

• Extremely high bandwidth and large information throughput available many times greater than
RF communication.

• Modulation of Helium-Neon laser results in a channel band width of 4700 GHz, which is enough
to carry a million simultaneous TV channels.

• Laser technology meet the needs of a variety of space missions, including inter satellite links,
Earth to near-space links, and deep space missions.

• Small beam divergence, small size, and large information bandwidth due to operation at a
higher frequency are all advantages of a laser system.

• Additionally, the advantages of light weight, small volume, and lower power consumption
provides laser communication a potential edge over RF communication.

CONCLUSION:

The future will require higher and higher bandwidth solutions to meet the needs of corporations
and individuals. C ost effective alternatives need to be found to augment the legacy WAN
technologies in providing secure, redundant links between corporate resources, the Internet and
the telephone company carriers. Laser communication can meet these needs and will be used in
an ever-increasing way to provide these solutions in the future.

The current status of the Laser communication appears to be a suitable technique as a modulation
for high performance wireless telecommunications. Several other important factors affecting the
performance of laser communication have only been partly measured

REFERENCE SITES:

www.freepatentsonline.com/599299.html

www.britannica.com

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/FinalProjects/s2003/kmc29/index.htm

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