The design of laser communication terminal test and evaluation station

Dues to its large capacity of information, super-speed transmission and high stability, laser communication has become a popular kind of satellite communication technology. Different from other kinds of communication technology, laser communication terminals (LCT) consists of optical systems with high imaging quality, high precise and rapid tracking systems. Testing the LCT on land is necessary to ensure its performance on the satellite. This article introduces a LCT-test and evaluation station (LCT-TES) in the laboratory. The LCT-TES is a high quality optical system providing laboratory measurements of the key characteristics of LCT, such as power testing, energy distribution of light spot in the far field, and the angle of beam divergence. The test precision of LCT- TES is also analyzed in this paper.