Modelling wind in simulations of atmospheric optical propagation

In our attempt to better characterize optical turbulence effects, we generalized the common split-step approach of propagation simulations to spatio-temporal simulations. The time dimension is introduced by making a "local frozen turbulence assumption" which states that the local changes of the medium are dominated by wind transport and can be fully characterized by a (local) mean wind vector. We make a second simplifying assumption by neglecting wind components in the direction of propagation. The shifting theorem of Fourier theory is used in our implementation of the relative movement of the medium. As an example application, an optical downlink from a LEO satellite is illustrated and the fluctuations of the received optical field are estimated.