Method and apparatus for alignment of a line-of-sight communications link
摘要
說明書
In still another example embodiment, an apparatus is disclosed for aligning an optical transmitter with an optical receiver for a line-of-sight communications link, the system comprising an optical transmitter and an optical receiver. The optical transmitter may comprise a laser array emitter and an optical transmitter control system. The optical receiver may comprise a photodetector array and an optical receiver control system. The laser array emitter may comprise a plurality of laser emitting regions, wherein each of a plurality of the laser emitting regions is configured to emit laser light in a different direction such that the laser array emitter is capable of emitting laser light in a plurality of different directions. The optical transmitter control system can be configured to (1) select a laser emitting region of the laser array emitter, and (2) emit laser light from the selected laser emitting region, and the optical receiver control system can configured to determine, in cooperation with the photodetector array, whether the optical transmitter is in alignment with the optical receiver, wherein the optical transmitter control system and the optical receiver control system are configured to repeat the select, emit, and determine operations with respect to different laser emitting regions of the laser array emitter until an alignment of a laser emitting region of the laser array emitter with the optical receiver is found. The optical transmitter can be further configured to optically communicate data to the optical receiver via the aligned laser emitter region.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be described hereinafter to those having ordinary skill in the art.
