Patent ID: 7058316

Claim:
An optical communications receiver for receiving and processing turbulence degraded optical signals comprising: a detector array comprising a grid array of N×M detector elements, where N is ≧2 and M is ≧2 for detecting a point spread function characteristic of the received optical signal, wherein each of the plurality of detector elements outputs a detector output characteristic of a portion of the point spread function; a signal processor for real-time processing the detector outputs to optimize the performance of the optical communications receiver by separating a plurality of performance enhancing detected signals from a plurality of performance degrading detected signals, the signal processor being further configured to: receive the detector outputs from the plurality of detector elements and estimate a signal intensity from each detector output, select the performance enhancing detector outputs by selecting the detector outputs containing sufficient signal intensity to improve the performance of the optical detector, and combine the performance enhancing detector outputs into a single processed signal characteristic of the instantaneous point spread function; and a decoder for detecting the received optical signal in the processed signal and outputting a decoded optically transmitted symbol to a user.