Results from a CCSDS-compliant High Photon Efficiency Downlink SDR Platform

Target of the ESA project Optical Hybrid is a breadboard implementation of a high photon efficiency (HPE) link for space missions, compliant with the CCSDS recommended standard for optical communication. Especially the physical layer and coding and modulation layer are considered. The specification is targeting high photon efficiency, which is an important new aspect. Therefore the emulation of the downlink physical layer is a baseline in the project. The signal processing part was implemented on a SDR platform, which is able to generate and process SCPPM modulated pulses down to 2ns length. In the first project phase an end-to-end system simulation was setup. Performance results are presented in the context of this paper.