Light Emitting Diodes for intersatellite links - LEDs4ISLs

A variety of work has been done on using LEDs for short-range intersatellite links:

• Link Performance Improvement via Design Variables Optimization in LED-Based VLC System for Inter-satellite Communication, D. N. Amanor, W. W. Edmonson and F. Afghah, IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE), Montreal, Canada, October 2017. (DOI 10.1109/WiSEE.2017.8124884)
• Utility of Light Emitting Diodes for Inter-Satellite Communication in Multi-Satellite Networks, D. N. Amanor, W. W. Edmonson and F. Afghah, IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE), Aachen, Germany, September 2016. (DOI 10.1109/WiSEE.2016.7877315).
• Visible Light Communication System for Intersatellite Communication of Small Satellites, D. N. Amanor, W. W. Edmonson and A. I. Anyanhun, Small Satellites Systems and Services - 4S Symposium, Valetta, Malta, June 2016.
• Building and Evaluating COTS Based Optical Interlinks for Nanosatellites, T. Idriss and M. Bayoumi, 24th IEEE Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN), Las Vegas, Nevada, August 2015 (DOI 10.1109/ICCCN.2015.7288381).
• Intersatellite Links, L. Wood, United States Patent Application 20100279604, filed 4 May 2009, application published 4 November 2010. Rejected, suggesting that the basic idea is unencumbered and unpatentable.
• Using Light-Emitting Diodes for intersatellite links, L. Wood, W. D. Ivancic and K.-P. Dörpelkus, IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, Montana, March 2010 (DOI 10.1109/AERO.2010.5446711).

Other work discussing exploiting Fraunhofer lines as relatively noise-free channels for in-space links includes:

• Fraunhofer filters to reduce solar background for optical communications, E. L. Kerr, SPIE Journal of Optical Engineering, September 1989 (DOI 10.1117/12.7977070).

ShindaiSat and FITSAT-1 demonstrated LED communications to ground. LEDs can also be used for satellite tracking, as planned with LEDSAT (Facebook page).

• A LED-based Technology to improve the orbit determination of LEO satellite, S. Masillo et al., IAC-17,A6,9,5,x41229, International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Adelaide, September 2017.
• LEDSAT: In-Orbit Demonstration Mission for LED-based cluster launch early identification and improved LEO Surveillance, A. Pellegrino et al., IAC-17,A6,10-B4.10,8,x41050, International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Adelaide, September 2017.
• LEDSAT: Design of a cubesat equipped with LEDs as a calibration target, P. Seitzer et al., 7th European Conference on Space Debris, European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), April 2017.
• LEDsats: LEO CubeSats with LEDs for Optical Tracking, P. Seitzer et al., Proceedings of the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference (AMOS Technologies), Wailea, Maui, Hawaii, September 2016.
• Development and operations of nano-satellite FITSAT-1 (NIWAKA), Takushi Tanaka, Yoshiyuki Kawamura and Takakazu Tanaka, Acta Astronautica 107 (2015), pp. 112-129.