Patent ID: 7120363

Claim:
A method for use in free-space optical communication, comprising the steps of: receiving a receive optical beam through a narrow field of view at a first position of a first link head; determining a receive power level of the receive optical beam; shifting an alignment from the first position; detecting a change in receive power level; altering the shifting of the alignment to compensate for a decrease in the receive power level; and transmitting a transmit optical beam along the alignment to a second link head, wherein the narrow field of view is less than a divergence of the transmit optical beam; wherein both the first and second link heads are capable of shifting alignment to compensate for a decrease in receive power levels at a same time and without having to communicate alignment information between them; wherein the steps of at least shifting, detecting, and altering the shifting are performed such that the transmit optical beam does not leave a far field transceiver field of view.