Aniceto's current research addresses enabling coherent technologies and methods that are often common in coherent free-space laser communication, heterodyne light sensing, and complex field imaging. Advances in beam propagation, wavefront modulation methods, homodyne and heterodyne coherent receivers, post-detection processing schemes, and spatial multiplexing techniques are all the subject of his research.

His research work brings together several converging interests in laser communications and light remote sensing. Aniceto's current research in laser communications focuses on:

• Coherent laser downlinks. Accurate knowledge of information data capacity between a spacecraft and optical ground stations is of utmost importance for assessing the feasibility of laser downlinks in future high bandwidth communication systems from space. For the additional cost and complexity of the downlink systems, there is a growing interest for the sensitivity and spectral efficiency potential of coherent optical receivers. Aniceto works to demonstrate experimentally how array technologies, as an alternative to adaptive optics, are expected to expand capacity of laser downlinks by tracking and correcting atmospherically distorted signals.
• Optical receivers using adaptive compensation techniques. When an optical signal is transmitted through the atmosphere, the potential of free-space optical links is seriously impaired by phase distortions and fading induced by clear-air turbulence. Aniceto has studied optical and electronic signal processing methods to overcome atmospheric effects in links employing coherent detection. Conveniently, coherent channel-matched array receivers consisting of multiple subapertures can reduce signal fading. Also, phase wavefront distortions can be mitigated in principle with adaptive optics. Aniceto’ studies provide a comprehensive, unified analysis of these two fundamental compensation techniques used in free-space coherent system.
• Laser beam propagation. Aniceto has been conducting theoretical and experimental investigations relating to generation, free space propagation, interaction with various media and detection of electromagnetic light fields of both deterministic and random nature. Currently, he is considering how orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light can prove to be useful for applications in photonic information systems.

His recent work in the area of light sensing address several major challenges:

• Optical Doppler shift with phase-structured light. When a light beam with a transverse spatially varying phase is considered for optical remote sensing, in addition to the usual longitudinal Doppler frequency shift of the returned signal induced by the motion of the scatter along the beam axis, a new transversal Doppler shift appears associated to the motion of the scatterer in the plane perpendicular to the beam axis. Currently, Aniceto and his collaborators are considering how this new effect can be used to enhance the current capabilities of coherent lidar systems, adding the capacity to detect more complex movements of scatters.
• Measure of flow properties with helical beams of light. There is a need to measure the coherent structures and vortex interactions that are at the leading edge of laminar, transitional, and turbulent flow studies. The measurement of flow properties is important in research fields as diverse as biology microfluidics, complex motions in the oceanic and atmospheric boundary layers, and wake turbulence on fluid aerodynamics. However, the precise measurement of flow characteristics -such as vorticity- is difficult. Aniceto’s experimental research is focused in effective and simple coherent lidar sensing techniques to direct test of flow fields using ring-shaped OAM, Laguerre-Gauss beams with an azimuthal phase variation.
• Limits to the information gain from lidar sensing. Measurements over the return signal are an integral part of lidar remote sensing by which we gather information about the characteristics of specific targets. But how much information is gained by performing a given lidar measurement? By defining Shannon’s mutual information of a lidar observation, Aniceto considers the bits of information content on the measurement and describes the capacity of lidar estimates to represent a corresponding property in the target.