Inter-satellite optical wireless communication (IsOWC) systems challenges and applications: A comprehensive review

Satellite communication, in over half a century have attained remarkable breakthrough in high speed transmission. These innovations, on the other hand, have come in tandem with significant performance improvements in other IT and telecommunications systems. As a result, these significant benefits are not as visible to the broader public as they would be as if this burst of performance had occurred in isolation. In nutshell, space satellite communication using optical technology provide powerful alternative to radio frequency (RF) and make communication reliable and cost effective. Satellite communications systems allow a whole new race of civilian and defence operations in surveillance, telecommunications, object tracking and space exploration. Since independent satellites are restricted by volume, space and strength, small satellites production in bulk clusters may be effective for a range of wildfire monitoring, science missions, mapping in gravity and water management exploration, among others. The development of communications satellites would provide for a more comprehensive understanding of the near-earth environment as well as a more efficient and cost-effective way of reaching space, thanks to the utilisation of multi-satellite systems. As a result, when satellites are designing, IsOWC is an utmost point to be considered. The numerous researches being performed in the satellite communications for introducing multi communications based on different orbits are described in this study. IsOWC systems over radio frequency based communication are preferred due to large bandwidth, high speed, absence of electromagnetic interference (EMI), lower transmission losses and improved security. We also present a detailed listing of challenges in Is-OWC such as Doppler shift, point ahead angle, satellite vibration and tracking, acquisition tracking and pointing (ATP) and background noise sources. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.