CHINA has set the bar high after a breakthrough in satellite-to-ground laser communications, beating Elon Musk’s Starlink.
It means that 6G is a step closer to being a reality as well as the use of other technologies using satellite and laser communications.
Chang Guang Satellite Technology, the company behind the Jilin-1 satellite constellation made the breakthrough during testing last weekend.
The company confirmed that it managed to reach a 100 gigabit per second ultra-high-speed image data transmission rate.
This beat the company’s previous record by 10 times the speed.
The breakthrough was recorded between a ground station mounted to a truck and one of the Jilin-1 satellites, the company announced.
During the test, remote sensing images were sent from the satellite to the optical telescope on the truck.
Wang Xingxingh, the company’s technical director of laser communication said: “The data rate in this test reached 10 gigabytes per second, which is more than 10 times higher than that of the radio-frequency links traditionally used for satellite communication.”
The Jilin constellation is made up of 117 satellites and the latest update means that it is a frontrunner while Musk’s Starlink is on the back foot.
This has been supported by Wang Hanghang, CGST’s head of laser communication ground station technology.
He told the South China Morning Post: “Musk’s Starlink has revealed its laser inter-satellite communication system but hasn’t deployed laser satellite-to-ground communication yet.
“We think they might have the technology, but we’ve already started large-scale deployment.”
“We plan to deploy these laser communication units across all satellites in the Jilin-1 constellation to improve their efficiency, with a goal of networking 300 satellites by 2027.
He noted that the breakthrough “lays the foundation for the deployment and efficient operation of China‘s satellite infrastructure, including navigation, 6G internet, and remote sensing applications.”
But, it is not the first time such leaps have been recorded.
In 2022, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made a 100Gbps laser transmission.
The following year, NASA‘s TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) system which was built by MIT reached a record of 200Gbps.
But, Chang Guang Satellite Technology’s system has a considerable benefit.
The company revealed that the ground station is transportable so can be placed anywhere to avoid issues such as clouds, extreme weather, or atmospheric turbulence.
While the core of the TBIRD satellite is made up of three 10cm cubes, the ground station is within NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Meanwhile, China’s system is about 20kg heavier but the ground unit can be mounted to a truck and is mobile meaning it could lead to faster applications
While it is costly to upgrade these ground stations, Wang believes that the positives entirely outweigh the negatives and that using such systems is an “important direction” for the company as it looks at developing 6G.
When this happens, the company hope to once again be ahead as “laser communication will also be a necessary technology by then,” Wang added.
