Satellite Link Analysis

• Design of the Satellite Links

• Link Budget and their Interpretation

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 Introduction

• A satellite link is defined as an Earth station - satellite - Earth station connection.

• The Earth station - satellite segment is called the uplink.
• The satellite - Earth station segment is called the downlink.
• The Earth station design consists of, The Transmission Link Design or the Link Budget, the Transmission System Design.
• The Link Budget establishes the resources needed for a given service to achieve the performance objectives
 Design of the Satellite Link

• The satellite link is probably the most basic in microwave communications since a line-of-sight path typically exists between
the Earth and space.
• This means that an imaginary line extending between the transmitting or receiving Earth station and the satellite antenna passes
only through the atmosphere and not ground obstacles.
• Free-space attenuation is determined by the inverse square law, which states that the power received is inversely proportional to
the square of the distance.
• There are, however, a number of additional effects that produce a significant amount of degradation and time variation.
• These include rain, terrain effects such as absorption by trees and walls, and some less-obvious impairment produced by
unstable conditions of the air and ionosphere.
• It is the job of the communication engineer to identify all of the significant contributions to performance and make sure that
they are properly taken into account.
• The required factors include the performance of the satellite.
• The configuration and performance of the uplink and downlink Earth stations
• The impact of the propagation medium in the frequency band of interest.
 Design of the Satellite Link

• The RF carrier in any microwave communications link begins at the transmitter and propagates from the transmitting antenna
through the medium of free space and absorptive atmosphere to the receiving antenna, where it is recovered by the receiver.
• The carrier is modulated by a baseband signal that transfers information for the particular application.
• The first step in designing the microwave link is to identify the overall requirements and the critical components that determine
performance
 Design of the Satellite Link

• Bidirectional (duplex) communication occurs with a separate transmission from each Earth station.
• Due to the analog nature of the radio frequency link, each element contributes a gain or loss to the link and may add noise and
interference as well.
• The result in the overall performance is presented in terms of the ratio of carrier power to noise and, ultimately, information
quality.
• Any uncertainty can be covered by providing an appropriate amount of link margin, which is over and above the C/N needed to
deal with propagation effects and nonlinearity in the Earth stations and satellite repeater
 Design of the Satellite Link
 Link budget is actually the sum of all the losses between: Transmitter - Satellite & back down to a Receiver. These
losses are reduced by any gain you have at the transmitter, satellite or receiver. So in order to see if your signal is still
going to be big enough to use after it has been sent to a receiver via satellite, the gains and losses are effectively added
together and the result will be the net gain or loss. A loss means your signal has got smaller, and a gain means it has got
bigger.
 The four factors related to satellite system design:
-The weight of satellite
-The choice frequency band
-Atmospheric propagation effects
-Multiple access technique
 The major frequency bands are 6/4 GHz, 14/11 GHz and 30/20 GHz (Uplink/Downlink)
 At geostationary orbit there is already satellites using both 6/4 and 14/11 GHz every 2 (minimum space to avoid
interference from uplink earth stations) -> Additional satellites higher BW
 Low earth orbit (LEO) & medium earth orbit (MEO) satellite systems are closer and produces stronger signals but earth
terminals need omni directional antennas
 The design of any satellite communication is based on two constraints.
 Meeting of minimum C/N ratio for a specific percentage of time
 Carrying the maximum revenue earning traffic at minimum cost
 Satellite link design –Uplink

• Uplink design is easier than the down link in many cases

- Earth station could use higher power transmitters
• Earth station transmitter power is set by the power level required at the input to the transporter, either
- A specific flux density is required at the satellite
- A specific power level is required at the input to the transporter

• Analysis of the uplink requires calculation of the power level at the input to the transponder so that uplink C/N
ratio can be found
• With small-diameter earth stations, a higher power earth station transmitter is required to achieve a similar
satellite EIRP.
- Interference to other satellites rises due to wider beam of small antenna
• Uplink power control can be used against uplink rain attenuation
Satellite uplink model
Satellite transponder
Satellite downlink model
Basic Terminology
Transmission Equation:
The transmission equation relates the received power level at the destination, which could be the Earth
station or the satellite in the case of a satellite communication link, to the transmitted RF power, the
operating frequency and the transmitter--receiver distance.
 For an isotropic antenna Type equation here.in free space conditions, the power supplied to the
antenna, PT, is uniformly distributed on the surface of a sphere of which the antenna is the center
Power Flux density:
 The power flux-density is the power radiated by the antenna in a given direction at a sufficiently large
distance, d, per unit of surface area is:
PT GT
Power Flux density Pfd =
4πd2
 The power flux-density radiated in a given direction by antenna having a gain, GT, in that direction is:
The equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) = PT GT
The power received by an antenna with area AR is:

 The gain of any antenna, for example GR, is:

The expression for the received power is modified to

The term (4𝜋𝑑∕𝜆)2 represents the free space path loss 𝐿P. The above expression is also known as the Friis
transmission equation. The received power can be expressed in decibels as

The above equation can be modified to include other losses, if any, such as losses due to atmospheric
attenuation, antenna losses, etc. For example, if 𝐿A, 𝐿TX and 𝐿RX are the losses due to atmospheric
attenuation, transmitting antenna and receiving antenna respectively, then the above equation can be
rewritten as
Application:
A geostationary satellite at a distance of 36 000km from the surface of the Earth radiates a power of 10
watts in the desired direction through an antenna having a gain of 20 dB. What would be the power
density at a receiving site on the surface of the Earth and also the power received by an antenna having an
effective aperture of 10m2?
Satellite Link Parameters

Choice of operating frequency

Propagation considerations
Noise considerations
Interference-related problems

Overall design of a complete satellite communications system involves many complex trade-offs to obtain a cost-effective solutions
Factors which dominate are
Downlink EIRP, G/T and SFD of Satellite
Earth Station Antenna
Frequency
Interference
 General Architecture
Transmit Earth Station
 Antenna Gain
EIRP down
 Power of Amplifier
Uplink
G/T &
SFD
Downlink Uplink
Uplink Path
Downlink Path
Loss
 Path Loss
Loss
Rain
Rain Attenuation  Rain Attenuation
Attenuation

Gt EIRP Up G/T ES

Pt Satellite
LNA / LNB
 G/T
HPA / Transceiver
 EIRP (Equivalent Isotropic
Radiated Power)
 SFD (Saturated Flux
Density)
Receiving Earth Station  Amplifier Characteristic
 Antenna Gain Downlink
 LNA /LNB Noise Temperature  Path Loss
 Other Equipment
 Rain Attenuation
Signal Power Calculation
Antenna Gain

G =  ( * d / ) 2 [dBi]

Where,
=C/f,
C = Speed of light
f = frequency of interest
 = efficiency of antenna (%),
d = diameter of antenna (m)
Antenna Beam width

3dB = 70 * C / df [degrees]
Where,
C= 3x108 m/s (Velocity of Light)
EIRP
Is the effective radiated power from the transmitting side and is the
product of the antenna gain and the transmitting power, expressed as

EIRP = Gt + Pt –Lf [dB]

Where,
Lf is the Feed Losses
Signal Power (Pr)
Pr = EIRP – Path Loss + Gr (sat) [dB]
Where,
Path Loss = (4D / ) 2
D is the Slant Range (m)
Noise Calculation

Thermal Noise
Is the noise of a system generated by the random
movement of electronics, expressed as

Noise Power = KTB

Where,
K= (-228.6 dBJ/K)
T= Equivalent Noise Temperature (K)
B= Noise Bandwidth of a receiver
Effective Temperature:
Te = T1 + (T2/G1)
Where,
T1= Temperature of LNA
T2= Temperature of D/C
G1= Gain of LNA
Noise Temperature
Ts = Tant / Lf+(1-1/Lf)Tf
Where ,
Tant = Temperature of antenna
Lf = Feed Losses
Tf = Feed Temperature
Propagation Considerations
Attenuation is defined as the difference between the power that would have been received under ideal
conditions and the actual power received at a given time.

Where,
A(t) is the attenuation at any given time t
𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙(𝑡) is the received power under ideal conditions at time t
𝑃𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙(𝑡) is the actual received power at time t

Free-space Loss
it implies remoteness from all material objects or forms of matter that could influence propagation of
electromagnetic waves.
That means the Power received by an earth station antenna will be equal to 𝑃t∕(4𝜋𝑅2) where 𝑃t is the
transmitted power and 𝑅 is the distance of the receiving antenna from the transmitter. In the case of
uplink, the Earth station antenna becomes the transmitter and the satellite transponder is the
receiver. It is the opposite in the case of downlink.
The free-space path loss component can be computed from

where 𝐿FS is the free space loss and 𝜆 = operating wavelength. Also, 𝜆 = 𝑐∕𝑓, where
𝑐 = velocity of electromagnetic waves in free space
𝑓 = operating frequency
If 𝑐 is taken in km/s and 𝑓 in MHz, then the free-space path loss can also be computed from

Gaseous Absorption
there are specific frequency bands where the absorption is maximum, near total. The first absorption band is caused
due to the resonance phenomenon in water vapor and occurs at
Link Parameters’ Impact on Service Quality
 LINK BUDGET

 The link budget determines the antenna size to deploy,

-Power requirements,
-link availability,
-Bit error rate,
-Overall customer satisfaction with the satellite service.
 A link budget is a tabular method for evaluating the power received and the noise ratio in a radio link.
 It simplifies C/N ratio calculations.
 The link budget must be calculated for an individual transponder, and must be recalculated for each of the
individual links.
 The satellite link is composed primarily of three segments.
- The transmitting Earth station and the uplink
- The satellite
- The downlink media and the receiving Earth
• The carrier level received at the end of the link is a straightforward addition of the losses and gains in the path
between transmitting and receiving Earth stations
• C/N ratio calculation is simplified by the use of link budgets
• Evaluation of the received power and noise power in radio link
• The link budget must be calculated for individual transponder and for each link
 Link Budget Example

• Satellite application engineers need to assess and allocate performance for each source of gain and loss.
• The link budget is the most effective means since it can address and display all of the components of the power
balance equation, expressed in decibels.
• In the past, each engineer was free to create a personalized methodology and format for their own link budgets.
• This worked adequately as long as the same person continued to do the work.
• Problems arose, however, when link budgets were exchanged between engineers, as formats and assumptions can
vary.
• A standardized link budget software tool should be used that performs all of the relevant calculations and presents
the results in a clear and complete manner.
Link Budget Example:
Uplink Budget
 SATELLITE LINK DESIGN METHODOLOGY

The design methodology for a one-way satellite communication link can be summarized into the following steps.
.
• Step 1. Frequency band determination.
• Step 2. Satellite communication parameters determination. Make informed guesses for unknown values.
• Step 3. Earth station parameter determination; both uplink and downlink.
• Step 4. Establish uplink budget and a transponder noise power budget to find (C/N) up in the transponder
• Step 5. Determine transponder output power from its gain
• Step 6. Establish a downlink power and noise budget for the receiving earth station
• Step 7. Calculate (C/N) down and (C/N) up for a station at the outermost contour of the satellite footprint.
• Step 8. Calculate SNR/BER in the baseband channel.
• Step 9. Determine the link margin.
Step 10. Do a comparative analysis of the result with the specification requirement
• Step 11. Assume system parameters to obtain acceptable (C/N) /SNR/BER values.
• Step 12. Propagation condition determination.
• Step 13. Uplink and downlink unavailability estimation.
• Step 14. Redesign system by changing some parameters if
the link margins are inadequate.
• Step 15. Are gotten parameters reasonable? Is design
financially feasible?
• Step 16. If YES on both counts in step 15, then satellite link
design is successful – Stop.
• Step 17. If NO on either (or both) counts in step 15, then
satellite link design is unsuccessful – Go to step 1
Link budget calculations
C