Case Study: Astrium achieves world's first two-way aircraft-to-satellite laser optical link with MathWorks Model-Based Design

Astrium Creates World’s First Two-Way Laser Optical Link Between an Aircraft and a Communication Satellite

Astrium, a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS, set out to build LOLA: the world’s first two-way, 50 Mbps laser optical link between an aircraft and the Artemis geostationary satellite, overcoming atmospheric distortion and aircraft vibrations that degrade pointing precision. To meet this challenge Astrium used MathWorks tools for Model‑Based Design—including MATLAB, Simulink, Simulink Coder, Simulink Real‑Time, Control System Toolbox, and Optimization Toolbox—to model and verify both control algorithms and the physical pointing hardware.

Using MathWorks’ toolchain, Astrium developed Simulink models for control, sensor processing, and hardware behavior, generated code for hardware-in-the-loop tests, and deployed a real‑time flight system with Simulink Real‑Time. The effort enabled the first-ever airborne–satellite optical link with <1 error bit per billion, cut overall development time by about six months, reduced design-iteration turnaround from days to hours, and increased test‑bench development speed roughly fourfold.

Astrium

David Gendre

Pointing Development Engineer