Optikal
Simulate the laser link before anybody builds the hardware
Modelling what the atmosphere does to a beam
Free-space optical communication sends data on a laser beam through open air — satellite to ground, rooftop to rooftop. It is fast and it needs no spectrum licence, and its hard problem is the atmosphere: fog, turbulence, scintillation and weather degrade the link in ways that decide whether a design works before anything is built.
Optikal models that. It computes link budgets under atmospheric conditions and bundles seven specialised physics engines — structural, fluid dynamics, electromagnetics, radio and robotics — behind one API and dashboard, so a design can be evaluated across domains without stitching together seven separate toolchains.
Status: mature but not actively developed. Optikal is feature-complete against its original scope and has been stable rather than progressing; active engineering is elsewhere in the portfolio. It is the validation environment behind our optical networking research.
What is in it
Seven physics engines
Structural and multiphysics finite elements, computational fluid dynamics, electromagnetic simulation, software-defined radio, weather research forecasting, and robotics — containerised behind one interface.
Atmospheric link budgets
Beam propagation modelled through fog, turbulence and scintillation, which is the calculation that decides whether an optical link closes at all.
One API across domains
A single HTTP surface in front of engines that normally each demand their own input formats, run harness and expertise.
Visual analysis
A web dashboard with a large component library for inspecting results, including three-dimensional visualisation of propagation.
Laser safety as a first-class check
Safety validation against the international laser-safety standard is part of the modelling rather than a downstream review.
The platform, not the invention
Optikal is the environment used to model and validate. The optical mesh network and its patent portfolio are a separate research programme that builds on it.
Designing an optical link?
Optikal is the simulation platform behind our optical networking research. Get in touch if you are modelling free-space optics.