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TESTING February 24, 2026

Range Emulator: A Compact Paraxial Optical System to Emulate Long-Distance Monochromatic Laser Propagation

Authors

Subaru Shibai, Kiwamu Izumi

Abstract

Emulating long-distance light propagation on a laboratory scale is essential for the ground-based testing of intersatellite optical systems. To address this challenge, we propose and analyze a novel optical system called the Range Emulator (RE) to reproduce the spatial propagation effects of a long-distance beam within a compact apparatus. Our analysis identifies that three lenses are required as the minimum number of lenses to implement the RE. Through a numerical exploration, we quantify the fundamental trade-off between system compactness and manufacturing precision. This work provides a practical framework for designing compact optical testbeds for future multi-satellite laser link technologies.

Metadata

arXiv ID: 2602.20538
Provider: ARXIV
Primary Category: physics.optics
Published: 2026-02-24
Fetched: 2026-02-25 06:05

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Raw Data (Debug)
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