In addition, special blinkgeräts were used for communication with airplanes, balloons, and tanks, with varying success. Optical telephone communications were tested at the end of the war, but not introduced at troop level. German colonial troops used heliograph telegraphy transmitters during the Herero and Namaqua genocide starting in 1904, in German South-West Africa (today's Namibia) as did British, French, US or Ottoman signals.ĭuring the trench warfare of World War I when wire communications were often cut, German signals used three types of optical Morse transmitters called Blinkgerät, the intermediate type for distances of up to 4 km (2.5 miles) at daylight and of up to 8 km (5 miles) at night, using red filters for undetected communications. Its first practical use came in military communication systems many decades later, first for optical telegraphy. On June 3, 1880, Bell conducted the world's first wireless telephone transmission between two buildings, some 213 meters (700 feet) apart. The device allowed for the transmission of sound on a beam of light. Bell considered it his most important invention. In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter created the photophone, at Bell's newly established Volta Laboratory in Washington, DC. In the modern era, semaphores and wireless solar telegraphs called heliographs were developed, using coded signals to communicate with their recipients. The ancient Greeks used a coded alphabetic system of signalling with torches developed by Cleoxenus, Democleitus and Polybius. Optical communications, in various forms, have been used for thousands of years. History A photophone receiver and headset, one half of Bell and Tainter's optical telecommunication system of 1880 The technology is useful where the physical connections are impractical due to high costs or other considerations. This contrasts with using solids such as optical fiber cable. "Free space" means air, outer space, vacuum, or something similar.
#Space optics technology free#
At the top right corner is a monocular for assisting the alignment of the two heads.įree-space optical communication ( FSO) is an optical communication technology that uses light propagating in free space to wirelessly transmit data for telecommunications or computer networking. The receptor is the large lens in the middle, the transmitters the smaller ones. For short- to medium-range communication, see Optical wireless communications.Īn 8-beam free-space optics laser link, rated for 1 Gbit/s. This article is about optical communication over long distances.
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