I’m a researcher in space optical communications, working on one central challenge: enabling reliable, high-data-rate communication links between the ground and satellites. These links are a key technology for future global connectivity, offering data rates far beyond today’s radio-frequency systems and helping reduce the digital divide by extending high-capacity networks to remote and underserved regions.

A major obstacle to ground-to-space optical links is the Earth’s atmosphere. Atmospheric turbulence distorts optical wavefronts as they propagate, causing effects such as beam wander, scintillation, and deep signal fading. These effects are particularly critical on uplinks (ground-to-satellite), where the transmitted beam is narrow and must remain precisely aligned with a fast-moving target in space. Even small distortions can translate into large power losses and reduced communication reliability.

In many current systems, atmospheric turbulence is measured from a downlink beacon sent by the satellite and used to correct the uplink. However, due to the link geometry, the downlink and uplink do not follow exactly the same atmospheric path: they are separated by a point-ahead angle (PAA). As a result, the turbulence measured on the downlink is only partially representative of what the uplink actually experiences, limiting the effectiveness of conventional correction techniques.

My research contributes to overcoming this limitation by developing new methods to mitigate uplink turbulence, with a particular focus on beam wander correction. By exploiting richer information from the downlink—including both phase and amplitude measurements, combined with statistical knowledge of atmospheric turbulence—it becomes possible to estimate the wavefront along the uplink axis more accurately. In particular, this approach allows improved estimation of low-order aberrations such as tip and tilt, which dominate uplink pointing errors and power fluctuations at the satellite.

These methods have already been shown, through modelling and performance analysis, to more than double the reliably achievable data rates compared to conventional approaches under realistic atmospheric conditions. The next critical step is no longer theoretical: it is experimental demonstration in realistic operational settings.

I am now looking to work with partners who own or operate satellites to demonstrate these techniques on real ground-to-space links, bridging the gap between advanced atmospheric compensation concepts and deployable optical communication systems.

Beyond classical optical communications, my research interests extend to:

Ultimately, my work sits at the intersection of atmospheric physics, optical systems, and telecommunications, with the goal of turning cutting-edge turbulence mitigation techniques into robust, high-capacity space communication links.