Radio Frequency vs. Laser Communication

Radio frequency (RF) communication for airborne and satellite platforms is reaching its overall limits. Bandwidth is limited due to physics itself and the restricted availability of usable frequency spectrum. Also, there are interference issues between users (e.g. satellite and cell phone infrastructure). But what is particularly critical is that licenses for the use of RF communication are highly regulated and expensive. There are also a few things to consider when it comes to secure communication: radio links can be jammed, intercepted, and spoofed.

Laser communication in fibers is well established in terrestrial networks, in many cases substituting copper since the 1990s. Today transmitting data via wireless laser connections instead of RF takes communication to the next level. It is easy and cheaper to deploy as there are no country specific ITU frequency licenses required, and it transmits larger amounts of data (>10x) in less time at affordable costs. Laser communication is inherently very robust against any kind of jamming and spoofing. In addition, a laser link is very difficult to detect, and the terminals can hardly be localized, which significantly increases the security of the operators on ground and for the flight platform. This makes laser communication the next high-rate standard in airborne communication.