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Satellites helped to overcome the difficulties associated with long-range communication. Communication satellites are radio relay stations which offers the advantage of direct line-of-sight to almost 98% of the earths surface. Satellites communication systems are profitable than land based system if it allowed to stay in place for a reasonable number of years. The greatest strides in the development of satellites communication systems took place between 1965 and 1979, when COMSAT (Communication Satellite Corporation) launched four satellites within 6 years.
Semimajor Axis
Orbit Patterns
All satellites are placed in an orbit in space. An orbit is a circular/elliptical path occupied by the satellite moving in a direction parallel the surface of the earth. This velocity around the earth has a forward velocity sufficient to create an outward thrust (centrifugal force) equal to earths gravitational pull on the satellite. The satellite therefore stays in its orbit without falling back to earths surface. There are three common orbital patterns; the polar orbit, the inclined elliptical orbit and the equatorial geosynchronous orbit.
Orbital Patterns
Polar Orbit: - An orbit which passes over the poles. Equitorial Orbit: - An orbit in the plane of the equator. Elliptical Orbit: - An orbit elliptical in shape.
Polar Orbit
Equitorial Orbit
Orbital Patterns
Characteristics of satellite orbit include height, speed, angle of elevation and angle of inclination. When a satellite is in an elliptical orbit, the center of the earth is one of the focal points. Typically two points are of great interest, the highest point referred to as the apogee and the lowest point referred to as the perigree. Eclipse focal points
Geosynchronous Satellites
Equitorial Geosynchronous orbits are also called the Clarke Orbit. Communication Satellites placed on the Geosynchronous orbit are called Geosynchronous satellites. The following facts apply to all satellite orbits 1. The plane of the orbit must pass through the center of the planet being orbited. 2. The time to complete one orbit depends on the mass of the satellite, its velocity and the final orbital altitude.
Geosynchronous Satellites
Communication satellites are to placed in such orbits (geostationary) so that it appears to be stationary over a selected location on the earths surface. This means that the satellite must move in the same direction as the earths rotation. The only orbit that meets these requirements is the one that is directly over the equator, moving in a west-to-east direction at an altitude 35,838 kM (appr 36,000 kM) above sea level with a forward velocity of 10,998.4 kM/h (11,000 kM/h) to complete one orbit within 24 hrs.
Geosynchronous Satellites
The satellite placed in this orbit revolves in exact synchronism with the earths rotation and appears fixed or stationary w.r.t the earth.
Geosynchronous Satellites
Hence such orbits are called geostationary orbits Since the satellites appear to be stationary in space special antennas for tracking are required. The antennas can be simply pointed at the satellite. This arrangement makes continuous communication possible. Approximately 42% of earths surface can be seen or accessed from such a satellite, hence users within this area can utilize satellite for communication.
Geosynchronous Satellites
Synchronous orbits At the synchronous orbit the angular velocity of the satellite equals the velocity of a point on the earth. The geosynchronous orbit is placed at geo synchronous altitude. The geosynchronous altitude is calculated as follows. Let M and m be the mass of the earth and that of the satellite respectively. Similarly let RE and R be the radius of earth and that of the satellite from the center of the earth respectively.
Geosynchronous Satellites
If is angular velocity of the circular motion of the satellite in radian per second then the centrifugal force of the satellite would mR2 (1). This centrifugal force equals the gravitational force between the satellite and earth given by GmM/R2 - (2). Equating the above eqns. At the earths surface the gravitational force is mg where g is the gravitational acceleration due to gravity.
2
GmM mR = R
2
Then
GmM = mg R
2 E
Geosynchronous Satellites
Therefore
gR gR R= = 4 f
2 2 E E 2 2
1 3
1 3
Where f = 2/ is the revolutions per second. Putting f = 1 revolution per day and RE=6370kM and g=9.9m/s, R = 42,208 kM. Subtracting RE from R we get the distance of geosynchronous orbit from the surface of the earth equals 35,838kM.
Geosynchronous Satellites
Satellite location Illumination = footprint
The angle subtended by the at this distance is 17.3. The highest latitude at which the satellite is visible at this distance is 81.3. For an earth station to communicate with the satellite requires a minimum elevation angle of atleast 5.
Geosynchronous Satellites
This reduces the highest altitude to 76. Corresponding to this lattitude of coverage of the satellite is around 42% of earths surface. However the polar regions cannot be seen by the equatorial satellite. To cover the polar regions, therefore a satellite with an elliptical and inclined orbit is needed. Polar and inclined orbits may be synchronous, but it need not be stationary. A geostationary satellite is always synchronous. Geostationary satellites also has equatorial and circular orbit.
Geosynchronous Satellites
Hence all geosynchronous satellites need not be geostationary. Satellites placed in elliptical and inclined orbits whose period of revolution is equal to the earths siderial period of rotation (23 hrs, 56 min and 4.1 sec) is considered synchronous. Satellites in the geostationary earth orbit (GEO) enable 1. Facsimiles, 2. Video conferencing, 3. Internet, 4. Long distance fixed phone service, 5. Television and 6. Broad band communications.
Earth Station
The earth station or ground station is the terrestrial base of the system. The earth station can communicates (transmit and receive signals) with the satellite. An earth station consists of an antenna subsystem, a power amplifier subsystem, a low-noise receiver subsystem and a ground-communication equipment subsystem.
Earth Station
The performance of an earth station is specified by its equivalent-isotropic-radiated-power (e.i.r.p) and its gainto-noise ratio (G/T). The e.i.r.p is the product of the power output of the high power amplifier at the transmitting antenna and its gain. G/T is the ratio of the gain of the receiving antenna to the system noise temperature. The antenna gain is proportional to the square of its diameter and is dependent on the efficiency of the feed/reflector system. The system noise temperature is a measure of 1. the noise of the receiver, 2. losses between the antenna feed system and the receiver and 3. the antenna noise. The size of the antenna varies from 0.5m to 30m depending upon the type of earth station and the power capacity.
This new frequency is amplified and retransmitted to other receiving stations back on earth.
Linkages
Regardless of the orbits used for communication services, all satellite links have some elements in establishing end-to-end communication. The link in general form will have both transmit and receive facilities at both ends. The overall requirements for the satellite links can be divided into two parts. The first deals with the satellite radio-frequency (RF) link, which establishes a communication link between the transmitter and a receiver using the satellite as a repeater. The performance capacity of the satellite radio link is measured in terms of its overall available carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N).
Linkages
This is the ratio of the carrier power to the noise power measured in a Bandwidth (B). This ratio is a direct measure of the channel carrying capacity of the satellite link. The value of C/N depends on a number of factors, which in turn depends on the available power and bandwidth. The second requirement deals with link between earth terminals and user equipment. The user equipment consists of mainly voice, data, video communication devices which are either simplex or duplex .
Linkages
The quality of this baseband links is characterised by transmission rates, error rates, signal-to-noise ratio etc. Radio Frequency Satellite Link A communication satellite operates as a distant line-ofsight microwave repeater providing communication services among multiple earth stations in various geographic locations. Some relevant definitions related to the RF link are given below. A channel is a one way link from the transmitting earth station through the satellite to the receiving earth station.
Linkages
A circuit is a full-duplex link between two earth stations. A half-circuit is two way link between an earth station and the satellite only. The channel-carrying capacity of a satellite RF link is directly related to the overall available C/N ratio. The first component in the RF link is the up link. The figure of merit or the performance factor of this link is called the up link carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N)U. The second component in the RF link is the down link.
Linkages
Linkages
Similar to the up link the down link performance factor is called the down link carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N)D . Both the values of both (C/N)U and (C/N)D ratios depend on the power of the transmitter, the transmitting and receiving antenna gains and the receiving system noise temperature. The third component of the RF link is the satellite electronics system, which by itself produces undesirable noise signals. The carrier-to-noise ratio this system is expressed as (C/N)t.
Linkages
Up Link. All of the ground equipment along with the transmission path and the receiving antenna at the satellite are included in the up-link system. To conserve space and weight on board the satellite, the receiving antenna is made much smaller than the transmitting antenna. A smaller receiver antenna has low gain and needs a larger beam width angle. This can be compensated by increasing the size of the ground station transmitting antenna as well as raising the ground station transmitted power. Typical diameter of ground station transmitter antenna is 32.5 ft with a transmitter power of 1 to 5kW.
Linkages
Down Link. Similar to the up link system, all of the ground equipment along with the receiving path and the transmitting antenna at the satellite are included in the down-link system. The down-link is described in terms of a satellite transmitter output power, down link antenna gain and beam width and the ground area the transmitted signal will service (called the footprint). Fig shows the foot print patterns of a multi-beam satellite. The shape of the foot print is controlled by the design shape of the parabolic reflector.
Linkages.
Down Link.
Linkages
Cross Link. At the altitude of the Clarkes orbit, one satellite could have a foot print of 42.2% of the earths surface. The beam width from the satellite for such a coverage would only be 17.174. This would not allow a global coverage. A minimum of three satellites placed at 120 apart in the Clarkes orbit would cover all the earths surface (98%) except for the polar caps.
Linkages
Cross Link. This makes it possible for one earth station to transmit to another earth station at the opposite side of the globe by sending the data to its in view satellite.
A B
t =1
T
F
where
represents the sum of all the guard times and other preambles including the reference bursts.
To identify the frames in a superframe a frame identification number (marker) is required. Normally the idenfication number of frame 1 serves as the superframe reference marker. The process is repeated in the same fashion for every N frames and increases the TDMA frame efficiency.
DA-TDMA
Each carrier is assigned a frequency band with a small guard band to avoid overlapping between adjacent carriers.
A pool of available carrier frequencies is known to the satellite transponder. Each carrier frequency within the satellite transponder bandwidth becomes a part of this pool.