“COMMTRUE, optical communications through the atmosphere” is the name of the interdisciplinary project comprised by researchers from the Electric Engineering School (EIE, for its name in Spanish) and the Physics Institute (IFIS, for its name in Spanish), that proposes the development of new adaptive optical techniques based on artificial intelligence (AI) to characterize atmospheric turbulence, responsible of diverting the light that travels through the atmosphere.
The research was recently awarded funds from the DI Centenary Contest of the Research, Creation and Innovation Vicerectory (VINCI, for its name in Spanish), which seeks to consolidate highly competitive work teams to encourage future applications to Anillo or Núcleos Milenio projects from the ANID.
Led by Esteban Vera, scholar from the EIE and director of the Optoelectronics laboratory, the initiative seeks to improve one of the most promising, cutting-edge and efficient communication systems for the following years: free space and laser satellite communications.
Connectivity of the future
Connectivity through laser light allows the exchange of data in greater volumes and at ultra-high speed compared to traditional radio-frequency systems. However, horizontal atmospheric turbulence – which is present between two terrestrial points – seriously distorts the dissemination of light, causing severe interference of transmission at the optical communication links.
To this respect, the project director explained they have created “techniques with their own technology to model and compensate the turbulence that distorts light, in order to improve the bandwidth of the communication channel”.
Together with the design of novelty optical systems and non-linear models for atmospheric characterization, the main goal of COMMTRUE centers on experimentally validating the proposed methods through an optical communication link of 55 kms, between the SPOXC Space Observatory and the El Roble Hill.
If successful, this channel would become the most extensive optical link in Latin America, surpassing up to five times the longitude reached by other reported cases in the world. Along this line, besides contributing to the scientific community, the project has the Potential for consolidating the research trajectory and the existing human capital at the PUCV.
“These last years we have worked to build the SPOXC space observatory in Curauma and we currently have the capacity on earth to establish this link. This project is a great opportunity to consolidate the team, place ourselves in a good international position, and continue to grow as an observatory”, Esteban Vera added.
COMMTRUE is a challenging and promising proposal with the potential to contribute internationally to the technological advance of free space and satellite Communications, through the development of compact and low-cost solutions.
International Project
The team in charge of the project is comprised by Esteban Vera (EIE), as the director and specialist in adaptive optical instrumentation and AI; Darío Pérez (IFIS), Assistant Director in charge of atmospheric turbulence and optical instrumentation; Francisco Pizarro (EIE), expert in communications and antennas; and Mónica García (IFIS), expert in characterization and non-linear physical systems.
In addition, international collaborators from the University of Tokyo, the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille and ONERA in France are participating in the project.
By Magdalena Martínez
School of Electrical Engineering
