ACCOMMODATION OF FEEDER-LINKS OF NON-GEOSTATIONARY SATELLITES FOR PERSONAL
COMMUNICATIONS IN FREQUENCY BANDS ALLOCATED TO THE FIXED-SATELLITE SERVICE.
A G Reed
RSS Limited - UK
INTRODUCTION
Stimulated by industrial developments towards
personal communications links via constellations of
non-geostationary (NGSO) satellites, the World
Administrative Radio Conference of 1992 made
allocations to the mobile-satellite service (MSS) in the
range 1-3 GHz, but no specific provision for the
feeder-links to and from such constellations was made
at that time, other than to recognise that Radio
Regulation (RR) No. 22 allows bands allocated to the
fixed-satellite service (FSS) to be used for the feeder-
links of other space services. The subsequent increase
in the pace of development prompted the World Radio-
communication Conference of 1993 (WRC-93) to
request the ITU-R to carry out interference studies in
all FSS bands below 30 GHz, to provide a basis for
WRC-95 to take appropriate decisions regarding
spectrum for the feeder-links. ITU-R Study Group 4
therefore investigated the frequency sharing problems
which would potentially occur if NGSO MSS feeder-
links were implemented altematively in the 4-7 GHz
range, the 11-16 GHz range and the 18-30 GHz range.
The present paper outlines the scenarios studied, gives
examples of the quantitative results obtained, indicates
the principal conclusions and summarises the relevant
outcomes from WRC-95.
SHARING WITH GSO FSS NETWORKS
Up to now the overwhelming majority af FSS
networks have employed satellites in the geostationary
orbit (GSO), so a major requirement was to evaluate
the potential interference between NGSO MSS feeder-
links and GSO FSS networks. The planned NGSO
MSS systems for which information was available fall
into two main categories: a) low Earth orbit (LEO)
constellations of 40-70 satellites distributed between 4-
1 1 orbit planes of heights 700-1500 km, and b)
intermediate circular orbit (ICO) constellations of 10-
15 satellites distributed between 2 planes of heights
around 10000 km. Figure 1 illustrates the interference
paths between a feeder-link in a NGSO MSS system
and a link using the same frequency in a GSO FSS
system. (To avoid complicating the diagram only two
of the NGSO planes are shown.) If the NGSO system
uses the same up-path and down-path frequencies as
the GSO system (ie co-directional sharing), then the
interference paths are S l e E 2 and S243E1. If the up-
path frequency of the GSO system is allocated for the
down-path of the NGSO system and vice versa (ie bi-
Satellite Systems for Mobile Communications and Navigation, 13-15th May 1996,
Conference Publication No. 424 0 IEE, 1996
directional sharing), however, then the interference
paths are S 1 e S 2 (satellite-to-satellite) and E l e E 2
(earth station-to-earth station). The levels of
interference to both links depend on the lengths and
off-axis angles of the these paths. The lengths El-E2
and S 1-E2 remain fixed, but the lengths S2-El and S 1-
S2, and all the off-axis angles, vary with the relative
motion of S2. Hence, unlike the interference between
two GSO networks, interference between a GSO and a
NGSO network varies substantially with time even in
constant propagation conditions.
CO-directional Sharing
In this mode the nature of the interference to both
networks is conveniently demonstrated by the case of a
Polar LEO as in Figure 2. Consider interference from
the LEO network to the GSO network. On the down-
path, when the LEO satellite is in positions L1 and L3
its transmissions interfere via sidelobes of the GSO
earth station antenna, but when it is in position L2 the
interference enters via the main lobe. Since the gain of
the main lobe will usually be at least 40 dB higher than
that of the sidelobes concerned, the interference level
will increase by at least 40 dB while the LEO satellite
traverses the main beam. The duration of the
interference ‘burst’ will be short; a LEO satellite will
orbit at typically 3” per minute, and the earth station
beamwidth will be typically less than I”, giving an
‘event’ duration of less than 20 seconds. Similarly on
the up-path, when the LEO satellite is in positions L4
and L6, the sidelobes of its feeder earth station antenna
will radiate towards the GSO satellite, but in position
L5 the interference will derive from its main beam; so
again a high level burst of short duration will result.
By considering the GSO network as the interferer,
Figure 2 indicates that the up and down-path
interference to the NGSO network will also be
characterised by occasional bursts of what has come to
be termed ‘in-line’ interference.
The nature of ‘in-line’ interference is such that it is
necessary to evaluate its time statistics, and hence
determine whether it meets or exceeds short-term
interference criteria. Suppose that in a given network
interference exceeding the rest of the system noise
could be tolerated, provided it did not do so for more
than a small proportion of the time. Figure 3 shows
one orbit plane of a NGSO system interfering with an
earth station E receiving from a GSO satellite S. It is
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evident that, on most of the occasions when the line E-
S intersects that LEO plane there will be no LEO
satellite within the main beam of E, but on some
occasions an 'in-line' event will occur. It is further
evident that, from time-to-time, all satellites in all LEO
planes will cause 'in-line' events. Thus computer
models were constructed to simulate such scenarios for
statistically significant periods. Table 1 contains a
very small sample of results typically obtained from
such simulations, and compares them with short-term
interference limits suitable for the services concerned.
By considering many results such as those in Table 1 it
was concluded that co-directional sharing is not
feasible in the 6/4 and 14111 GHz bands, but if certain
amelioration techniques are adopted it is probably
feasible for some services in the 30120 GHz bands.
By-directional Sharing
Satellite-to-Satellite Interference. From Figure 1 it
can be deduced that, since the 'wanted' carrier (C) at
either S1 or S2 derives from an earth station, while the
interference (I) derives from a satellite, the C/I ratio is
likely to be high. The minimum C/I ratio will occur
whenever the distance Sl-S2 is a minimum, and if that
ratio remains higher than the protection ratio (PR) for
the service concerned the interference will be
acceptable. Table 2 gives a small but typical example
of the many cases for which C/I-PR was calculated; it
was concluded that satellite-to-satellite interference
would not be a barrier to frequency sharing.
Earth Station-to-Earth Station Interference. This is
overland interference, and an appropriate method must
be used to calculate the propagation loss (eg ITU-R
Recommendation 452). In Figure 4 Cartesian
coordinates for a pair of such stations are drawn such
that the 'X' axes coincide with the interference path.
Since earth stations do not normally operate at
elevation angles below about lo", it is evident that
main beam coupling will not occur, and that the worst
mutual interference levels will occur when eG=eN=lO"
and a,=aN=O". In practice it will usually be possible to
site one or other of the stations so that aG#Ooand aN#O0
and in most cases eG will be greater than 10". Further,
eN will only fal! to 10" for a small proportion of the
time. Table 2 includes a small sample of the coordina-
tion distances calculated for such cases; it was
concluded that frequency sharing would be feasible
provided the feeder stations were few in number and
judiciously sited.
FREQUENCY SHARING WITH NETWORKS OF
THE FIXED-SERVICE
Since almost all the FSS bands are additionally
allocated to the fixed-service (FS) it was also necessary
to evaluate the potential interference between NGSO
MSS feeder-links and terrestrial radio-relay systems
operating in the 6/4 GHz, 14/11 GHz and 30/20 GHz
ranges. Figure 5 illustrates the interference paths to-
and-from a radio-relay route. Since the same fre-
quency will be transmitted by some of the microwave
terminals and received by others, and the route may
employ both the 'up' and 'down' bands used by the
NGSO MSS feeder-links, the interference paths to be
considered are earth station-to-terminal, terminal to
earth-station, satellite-to-terminal and terminal-to-
satellite. The first two paths would be subject to the
normal coordination processes undertaken between
FSS and FS operators, except that in this case the
pointing direction of the earth station is a variable.
Figure 4 may be used to study the case if a radio relay
terminal is substituted for the GSO FSS earth station
and aG is set to 0". ITU-R Recommendation 879 sets
out the calculation steps. Here again, it was concluded
that sharing would be feasible with a modest number of
carefully-sited feeder stations.
The satellite-to-terminal and terminal-to-satellite
interference paths fall into three categories, as
illustrated in Figure 6, ie paths A e S , B e S and C e S .
The first of these is much more critical than the other
two, since it involves the main beam gains of both
microwave terminal and satellite antennas. The
interferences via paths B e S and C++S would be 20-40
dB lower than those via path A e S . It is necessary to
aggregate the interference from all co-frequency
NGSO satellites simultaneously visible to a given
radio-relay route, and similarly from all microwave
terminals visible to a given NGSO satellite.
Fortunately, since the elevation angles of most radio-
relay antennas are near to 0", at any instant the great
majority of interference paths will be of the B e S type,
and in practice the aggregate interference in both
directions is dominated by the few A e S cases which
temporarily occur. Despite the large numbers of
microwave terminals which can be involved, instances
of two simuitaneous A e S interferences to a given
satellite or radio-relay route would be short-lived, and
more than two would be very rare. Quantitative
studies of representative scenarios led to the conclusion
that sharing would be feasible if both services adhered
to the emission limits already prescribed in the Radio
Regulations.
OUTCOME OF WRC-95
The studies outlined above played a major part in
enabling WRC-95 to make accommodation for NGSO
MSS feeder-links in various frequency bands, and the
main features are summarised in Table 3. A number of
issues remain to be resolved by WRC-97, however, and
further work is ongoing in ITU-R toward that end.
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TABLE 1 - Co-directional sharing with CSO network: examples of excess interference event statistics for links
terminating in earth stations at 40" latitude,

TABLE 2 - Bi-directional sharing with GSO network: examples of margins above protection ratio for satellite-to-
satellite interference. and of coordination distance for earth station-to-earth station interference.

TABLE 3 - Main outcome of WRC-95 as regards Non-GSO MSS Feeder-links.

Frequency I Primary
Principal qualifications for Non-GSO MSS Feeder-links
Band Allocations*
ARNS. ARNS (International Microwave Landing System) takes precedence.

I
+
The FSS use is limited to Non-GSO MSS Feeder-links.
5091-5150
MHz FSS (Earth- Suitable sharing criteria are to be established by ITU-R studies prior to WRC-97.
to-space). The Primary allocation expires on 1 January 20 10.
In some countries the band 5150-5216 MHz is also allocated to the RDSS (space-to-
5 150-5250 Earth), and to the FSS (space-to-Earth), but with sundry restrictions in both cases.
MHz FSS (Earth- In some countries the whole band is also allocated to the terrestrial Mobile service.
to-space). The FSS use is limited to non-GSO MSS Feeder-links.
FS. The band 4725-7025 MHz (Earth-to-space) is subject to the FSS Allotment Plan.
6700-7075 FSS (E-to-s). The needs of passive microwave sensor measurements should be borne in mind.
MHz FSS (s-to-E). The FSS (space-to-Earth) use is limited to Non-GSO MSS Feeder-links, and is not subject
MS. to RR 2613 (now S22.2).
ARNS. The FSS u%is limited to non-GSO MSS Feeder-links, and is subject to power flux
density limits pending revision after study by ITU-R.
15*4-15.7
FSS (space- The RAS in the band 15.35-15.4 GNz must be protected from out-of-band emissions.
GHz
to-Earth). The band 15.45-15.65 GHz is also allocated to non-GSO MSS Feeder-links in the Earth-
I
to-space direction,, subject to restrictions to be determined by ITU-R studies.
I FS. In the band 19.3-19.6 GHz RR 2613 is waived for non-GSO MSS Feeder-links only, and
19.3-19.7 FSS (s-to-E). FSS use in the Earth-to-space direction is limited to non-GSO MSS Feeder-links.
GHz FSS (E-to-s). The possibility of the use of the band 19.6-19.7 GHz for non-GSO MSS Feeder-links will
MS. be considered by WRC-97, following studies in ITU-R.
In the band 29.1-29.4 GHz RR 2613 is waived, and FSS use is limited to GSO networks
29.1-29.5
FSS (E-to-s). and to non-GSO MSS Feeder-links, and fade compensation techniques of types which
reduce mutual short-term interference must be employed.
* ARNS - Aeronautical Radionavigation service. FSS - Fixed Satellite service.
FS - Fixed service (terrestrial radio-relay). MS - terrestrial Mobile service.
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