Liquid lens beam steering and environmental testing for the miniature optical steered antenna for inter-satellite communication

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, May, 2020Cataloged from the official PDF of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 105-106).We investigate the feasibility of using a series of deformable liquid lenses to achieve wide-angle beam steering for CubeSat laser communication (lasercom) crosslinks. Liquid lenses are lenses that can non-mechanically alter focal length based on an applied voltage or current. We evaluate two commercial liquid lens manufacturers, Corning Varioptic and Optotune. Corning Varioptic lenses rely on the principle of electrowetting for lens actuation, while Optotune lenses are driven by a voice coil. For steering, a liquid lens is placed offset from the optical axis. Varying the liquid lens focal length will cause the beam to steer in 1D by refraction, but also causes a change in beam divergence. Adding an on-axis focusing liquid lens allows this beam divergence to be controlled dynamically. Adding a second off-axis liquid lens, displaced in the other axis, creates 2D steering. A fisheye lens can then amplify the steering cone to full hemispherical coverage [1].However, liquid lenses were not designed for nor have ever been flown in space. In this work, we show that both types of liquid lens passed initial space qualification testing. Testing activities included vacuum survivability, vacuum operation, and thermal-vacuum (TVAC). The Corning A39N0 and Optotune EL-16-40-TC liquid lenses provided nearly identical steering transfer functions in vacuum as in ambient. The Corning and Optotune lenses achieved 2.7° and 8.6° angular range with collimated output, respectively, although these ranges were truncated by the camera field of view and focusing lens optical power range. The steering curves were linear, so, allowed to steer their full range, approximately 4.3° and 21.5° of steering range can be expected. In TVAC, the Corning lens operated from -25°C to 75°C and the Optotune lens from -40°C to 70°C. The lenses never failed in this testing, rather, external factors forced the termination of testing.Thus, even more temperature range may be expected. The lens steering angles drifted with temperature at 0.24 mrad/°C for the A39N0 and 0.19 mrad/°C for the EL-16-40-TC. The worst case hysteresis error, the difference in the steering transfer function between increasing and decreasing input values, was 0.3 mrad for the Corning lens and 1 mrad for the Optotune lens. A beam quality analysis was conducted in Zemax to identify the impact of beam refraction through the liquid lenses on transmit gain. Worst case values for transmit losses were found to be -0.5 dB for the Corning lens and -0.4 dB for the Optotune lens. However, at positive steering angles, an overall transmit boost can be expected due to the impact of beam expansion through the focusing liquid lens. We discuss key terminal design trade-offs, and a prototype transmit-only terminal was created and demonstrated full hemispherical steering in a lab setting.Future testing will investigate the beam quality and divergence for wide angle steering to quantify link distances for free space optical communications using this method of beam steering. A compact hemispherical laser transceiver will enable efficient, high data rate lasercom for small satellites.by Faisal A. Fogle.S.M.S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautic

Miniature Optical Steerable Antenna for Intersatellite Communications Liquid Lens Characterization

Laser communication (lasercom) can enable more efficient links across larger distances compared with radio frequency (RF) systems. However, lasercom systems are typically point-to-point connections that would have difficulty interacting with several concurrently active spatially diverse users, where RF systems can more easily support such scenarios. Lasercom pointing, acquisition and tracking (PAT) systems have traditionally relied on mechanical beam steering devices, such as fast steering mirrors (FSMs) or gimbals, both of which are subject to potential mechanical failure. In this work we investigate an alternative steering solution using liquid lenses. Liquid lenses are tunable lenses that can non-mechanically alter focal length based on an applied voltage or current. A series of liquid lenses, one on-axis to control beam divergence, and one each offset in the x and y-axes to steer, could be used to achieve laser pointing control. Currently available commercial off the shelf (COTS) liquid lenses are based on electrowetting (manufactured by Corning [1]) or pressure-driven (manufactured by Optotune [2]) operation. In this work, we analyze the suitability of both types of liquid lenses for use in a space-based multiple access lasercom terminal. Early liquid lens technology first surfaced in 1995 with the control of the shape of an oil droplet through electrowetting [3]. The technology then started to become commercially available with the founding of Varioptic in 2002. However, there is limited data on liquid lens survivability and operation in a space-like environment. Through vacuum testing, we have found that electrowetting-based liquid lenses not only survive, but continue to operate nominally in a very low-pressure environment. The pressure-driven liquid lenses appeared to have issues initially in vacuum testing, with gas bubbles forming in the lens aperture during pump-down. However, after extended exposure to vacuum of approximately two weeks, the gas bubbles diffuse through the lens membrane, and the lenses operate in vacuum. Steering transfer functions were developed both in ambient and in vacuum conditions for both lens types, and in each case, the differences between the two curves were largely negligible. The electrowetting lenses provide a steering range of 2.7°, both in and out of vacuum, with an approximate slope of 0.046°/V. In testing the Optotune lenses, the steering was limited by the camera detector size, but for a range of -92 mA to 144 mA on the steering lens, the lenses provided for approximately 8.6° of steering with a slope of 0.0367°/V. These steering ranges can be extended to near hemispherical coverage with the addition of a diffuser and wide-angle fisheye lens [4]. Maximum hysteresis error, the difference in steering angle response when increasing lens voltage or current as opposed to decreasing lens voltage or current, was identified at 0.02° for the Corning lenses and 0.05° for the Optotune lenses. A Zemax beam quality analysis was conducted to see how transmit gain would be affected by refraction through the liquid lenses. Through this analysis, the worst-case link penalties were determined to be -0.5 dB for the Corning lenses at _0.8° steering and -0.4 dB for the Optotune lenses at _1.0° steering. Thus, we see that liquid lenses are likely good candidates for space applications and may perform well in nonmechanical beam steering. We discuss next steps in environmental testing as well as optical layout and control approaches for using liquid lenses in PAT systems for a nanosatellite based optical antenna