SA Photonics achieves 50 Mbps underwater data transmission
Los Gatos, CA--SA Photonics announced that it has successfully completed open-ocean testing of its Neptune underwater communications system. Testing was performed in conjunction with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at their pier in the San Diego harbor. By precisely modulating a visible-wavelength fiber laser, Neptune achieved data rates of up to 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) at distances beyond 20 attenuation lengths in turbid coastal water.
SA Photonics' Neptune system provides data rates that are 1000 times higher than existing acoustic modems, enabling much needed bandwidth for critical underwater applications. "Our Neptune [trade marked] communications system will transform communications between ships, submarines and unmanned underwater vehicles, even in turbid coastal waters," says Jim Coward, SA Photonics' president and CEO. "SA Photonics' Neptune also provides a means to communicate in acoustically noisy littoral waters, where traditional acoustic modems have difficulty."
SA Photonics engineers leveraged their extensive expertise in communications systems and fiber lasers to create a system that can autonomously change modulation formats and data rate depending on the water quality and link distance. Neptune incorporates an SA Photonics BeamDirector that provides precision closed-loop acquisition, pointing, and tracking for the optical link. Neptune is a very small, lightweight, and power-efficient system that easily installs in mini-subs and unmanned underwater vehicles, as well as in submarines and ships.
SA Photonics develops and deploys photonics solutions for commercial and government applications and has expertise in optical communications, ruggedized photonics hardware, optomechanical design, and complex analog and digital engineering.
SOURCE: Yahoo! Finance; http://finance.yahoo.com/news/SA-Photonics-Achieves-High-bw-900810406.html?x=0&.v=1
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Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)
Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.