Free-Space Optical Communications

Working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Cubic has created a new way to establish a two-way optical communications link that has very low size, weight and power requirements, and is very difficult to detect or jam.

Build on years of experience fielding laser- based systems that have to operate in tactical environments, Cubic created a way to precisely reflect laser energy back only to the laser source, and to modulate that laser energy with new data. The fact that the return data path is achieved by reflecting energy rather than generating energy provides an important operational advantage for many applications that are sensitive to size or power. In addition, this two-way optical data link is capable of passing a wide range of voice, video or digital data, making it suitable for many tasks. Finally, optical communications are inherently immune to many of the jamming environments that render RF communications ineffective.