Kohei Kotani
(Advisor: Prof. Gunter)

will defend a master’s thesis entitled,

High-Speed, Low-Profile Design Fiber Optic Communication System for CubeSat

On

Thursday, May 12 at 1:00 p.m.
Montgomery Knight 317

Abstract
First used in a space mission in 1992, fiber optic communications have been utilized on board to achieve high-speed interconnections. Although fiber optic interconnections include other advantages such as lightweight and low-profile design, which are desirable characteristics for CubeSat design with strict constraints on mass and volume, fiber optic interconnections are not commonly used in CubeSat platforms today. Furthermore, small satellites, including CubeSat, are adopting higher carrier frequencies for RF communications to achieve higher data rates in recent years because of the increased amount of sensor data, such as high-resolution cameras. Future CubeSat design needs higher data-rate interconnections at a rate of multi-Gbps to accommodate the increasing demand for the high volume of data. Now that several commercial off-the-shelf fiber optic modules are available, the feasibility of fiber optic interconnections in CubeSat platforms should be tested. Hence, this research will implement the high-speed interconnection for CubeSat platforms with the BF4M fiber optic module and demonstrate the dual-image display as an example application.

Committee

• Prof. Brian C Gunter – School of Aerospace Engineering (advisor)
• Prof. Edgar Glenn Lightsey – School of Aerospace Engineering
• Prof. Christopher Carr – School of Aerospace Engineering