The "Light Link" for speech communications

 

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Laser communications systems are wireless connections that work similarly to fiber optic links, except the beam is transmitted through free space.

The U.S. government's new Lasercom Interoperability Standard has been tested by Boeing, and demonstrated to the Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM) user community that it can rely on a 10 to 40 gigabit per second TSAT backbone between satellites. Just imagine that kind of bandwidth ..

TSAT is designed to provide the secure, long-haul, high capacity backbone and full Internet-like functionality for U.S. forces to ensure that they have information superiority in any situation throughout the world.

The Japanese Experiment Module "Kibo" on the International Space Station, which can now attach to & interface with the ISS, will carry the 1st laser communications experiments based on TSAT technology. This experiment will demonstrate large-capacity, high-data-rate (2.5 Gbps) two-way communications, between the ISS and ground stations.

As to what that means: Real-time voice communication, among other things.
- Talk about "lightning fast" wireless remote speech recognition ..
Across how many miles .. ??

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Update
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One of our readers left a comment that asked:
" ..surely the latency is the same as laser and radiowave both travel the distance at the same speed? "

We posed this question to our leading wireless audio engineer.

Here's what our engineer replied with:

"Light travels at 3e8 meters per second or 186282 miles per second.
The ISS orbits at (approx) 220 miles from Earth:
220/186282 = latency @ 0.0011 seconds each way. Light and radio travel at about the same speed thru space. The latency from the Moon to the Earth would be 1.3 seconds, each way, for example. The data rate does not really come into play unless you are compressing the data so much that your codec adds up to 100ms of extra delay.


Ultra Wideband at 60GHz can do a few Gbps - but only has a range of 20 feet or so. It really comes down to available bandwidth and transmit power, and power loss thru the medium you are transmitting through.."

The NASA sources we put this question to appear to base their position on throughput.

They note that RF's maximum throughput (presently) is around 100mbps, per 802.11n, where laser communications offer bandwidth to 2.56 terrabits per second (presently).

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The STEREO mission - protecting communication networks from "stormy weather"

 

Last night at 8:52 PM, the NASA STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) mission launched from NASA in Cape Canaveral, Florida. STEREO is the third mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes Program whose goal is to predict, and prepare for stormy "space weather".

What is "STEREO", you may ask .. ?

A quote from NASA, and creator, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Labratory:
"The two-year STEREO mission is the first to take measurements of the sun and solar wind in 3-dimension. This new view will improve our understanding of space weather and its impact on the Earth. ".. The mission will employ two nearly identical space-based observatories to provide the first-ever, 3-D stereoscopic images to study the nature of coronal mass ejections, or CME's."

An artists' rendering of this imaging:

Why's all this important?

Solar weather, particularly these CME's can disrupt everything in their path that is microelectronics, e.g communications satellites, GPS systems et al, or even disable these satellites beyond what their remote repair procedures can cure.

A CME is typically a billion tons of energized matter, travelling at anywhere from one to five million miles per hour, and solar energetic particles generated by CME's can reach earth in sometimes 20 minutes. This nice, short video on CME's from NASA is a good look at this.

There's an eleven year cycle to solar weather, and researchers expect that the next cycle will begin in late 2007 or early 2008—about six to 12 months later than earlier predictions. Moreover, a little publicized fact:
The upcoming period threatens to be as much as 50% stronger than the previous cycle, (strong enough to cause blackouts) and poses a pretty serious threat to satellites for wireless communication networks.

The STEREO mission's twin observatories will provide a great basis for early-warning systems that satellite providers can use to possibly put communications satellites in a "safe" mode, or shielded mode, to protect themselves.

Bullet-proofing the satellites integral to our wireless communications especially when, for instance, mission critical scenarios require the best possible speech signals to get from here to there, makes a better world for wireless communications, and in the long run.. better wireless speech recognition - what we're all about.

GPS systems, cellphones, satellite phones, speech data transport et al can be crippled, and without warning or possibility of recovery. NASA's mission offers the ground floor for a system to preempt satellite disruption or damage, and the hundreds of millions of dollars often earmarked for replacement/repair in such an event could (we hope) be dedicated to improving the quality of wireless communications, and therefore better, more reliable wireless speech recognition for everyone!