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Airborne laser-communication systems require special considerations in size, complexity, power, and weight. We reduce the variability of the received signal by implementing optimized multiple-transmitter systems to average out the deleterious effects of turbulence. We derive the angular laser-beam separation for various isoplanatic and uncorrelated (anisoplanatic) conditions for the phase and amplitude effects. In most cases and geometries, the angles ordered from largest to smallest are: phase uncorrelated angle (equivalent to the tilt uncorrelated angle), tilt isoplanatic angle, phase isoplanatic angle, scintillation uncorrelated angle, and scintillation correlation angle (Theta(psiind) > Theta(TA) > Theta(0) > Theta(chiind) > Theta(chic)). Multiple beams with angular separations beyond Theta(chic) tend to reduce scintillation variations. Larger separations such as Theta(TA) reduce higher-order phase and scintillation variations and still larger separations beyond Theta(psiind) tend to reduce the higher and lower-order (e.g. tilt) phase and scintillation effects. Simulations show two-transmitter systems reduce bit error rates for ground-to-air, air-to-air, and ground-to-ground scenarios.

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We introduce novel methods to determine optimum detection thresholds for the Progressive Multi-Channel Correlation (PMCC) algorithm used by the International Data Centre (IDC) to perform infrasound and seismic station-level nuclear-event detection. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis is used with real ground truth data to determine the trade-off between the probability of detection ( ) D P and the false alarm rate (FAR) at various detection thresholds.Further, statistical detection theory via maximum a posteriori and Bayes cost approaches is used to determine station-level optimum "family" size thresholds before detections should be considered for network-level processing. These threshold-determining methods are extensible for family-characterizing statistics other than "size," such as a family's collective F-statistic or signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Therefore, the reliability of analysts' decisions as to whether families should be preserved for network-level processing can only benefit from access to multiple, independent, optimum decision thresholds based upon size, F-statistic, SNR, etc.

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Lasers offer tremendous advantages over RF communication systems in terms of bandwidth and security due to their ultra-high frequency and narrow spatial beamwidth. Unfortunately, atmospheric turbulence significantly increases the received power variation and bit error rate (BER) in free-space optical communication (FSOC) systems. Further, airborne optical communication systems require special considerations in size, complexity, power, and weight.If two or more laser beams are sufficiently separated so that their turbulence effects are uncorrelated (i.e. anisoplanatic), they can effectively "average out" turbulence effects. This requisite separation distance is derived for multiple geometries, turbulence conditions, and optical properties. In most cases and geometries, the angles ordered from largest to smallest are: phase uncorrelated angle (equivalent to the tilt uncorrelated angle and phase anisoplanatic angle), tilt isoplanatic angle, phase isoplanatic angle, scintillation uncorrelated angle (or scintillation anisoplanatic angle), and scintillation isoplanatic angle (θ ψ ind > θ T A > θ 0 > θ χ ind > θ χ 0 ). Conventional adaptive optics (AO) systems only correct for phase and cannot correct for strong scintillation, while multiple-transmitter systems use several transmission paths to "average out" effects of the strong scintillation by incoherently summing up the beams in the receiver.Since all three airborne geometries (air-to-air, air-to-ground, and ground-toair) are studied, a comparison of multiple-beam airborne laser communication system performance is presented for the first time. Wave optics simulations show that a combination of transmitter diversity, receiver and transmitter trackers, and adaptive thresholding can significantly reduce BER in an air-to-air FSOC system by over 10,000 times. As demonstrated in this work, two transmitters alone separated by only 31 cm (100 km path length, 1.55 µm wavelength, 4 km in altitude) provide a significant iv BER improvement over one transmitter, especially for the strong turbulence regime where the required SNR for a fixed BER is reduced by 9 dB. Including the tracking and adaptive thresholding techniques, resulted in a 13 dB overall improvement.Two beams also reduce the fade length, suggesting even greater improvement can be obtained when interleaving and forward error correction coding is implemented. Major Schmidt also knew when to hand me water and how to keep me on the road, since he had just finished his marathon.

Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are an essential component of digital receiver systems. Progress at advancing the electronic ADC modules has been very slow due in large part to the difficulties in fabricating the electronic circuitry required for very high resolution and high sampling rate converters. This slow progress has resulted in a bottleneck between the received analog signal and the digital signal processing system. Single or multiple analog signal down conversion stages are required in digital receivers to down convert the received analog signal to an intermediate frequency (IF) that can be processed by the electronic ADC.There has been much recent interest in the use of photonics for direct digitization of the analog signal at the received RF frequency thus eliminating the need for analog down conversion. This paper reviews some of the recent research advancements in photonic ADCs. We will especially focus on the development of a novel photonic ADC module that uses semiconductor saturable absorbers to perform the data quantization. We will also present recent results in the development of a mode-locked fiber laser used as the sampling source in this photonic ADC architecture.