Performance investigation of 160 Gb/s inter-satellite laser communication transmission system based on OFDM and PDM transmission with advanced signal processing techniques

High-capacity inter-satellite laser communication links are essential for global coverage, remote sensing, and deep space missions, but face challenges from path loss, pointing errors, and limited aperture sizes that degrade performance at extended ranges and high data rates. This work reports simulative evaluation of an Inter-Satellite Laser Communication Transmission (Is-LCT) system with 160 Gb/s data rate. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), Polarization Division Multiplexing (PDM), and 32-level Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (32-QAM) techniques have been used to enhance the system baud rate, bandwidth efficiency and transmission rate of the system. Advanced signal processing techniques have been used to improve the performance of the proposed system. The proposed Is-LCT system is investigated for enhancing range, optical efficiency, aperture diameter, laser power, and pointing error using Error Vector Magnitude (EVM), Bit Error Rate (BER), and constellation as the metrics for performance evaluation. The obtained results demonstrate reliable 160 Gb/s data transmission at 7000 km Is-LCT range with BER \(\:\le\:\) 3.8 \(\:\times\:{10}^{-3}\) , EVM \(\:\le\:\) 12%, and clear constellation of the received optical signal.