SATELLITE LINK DESIGN

By Prof. P.K. Sahu

NIT ROURKELA
 SATELLITE LINK DESIGN
Learning Objective
 Understand the characteristics of each element in the satellite link.
 Compute the EIRP of the transmitter.
 Compute the gain of the transmit and receive antenna.
 Compute the losses encountered in satellite link.
 Compute the noise of the received input.
 Compute the signal quality in terms of SNR or BER for analog and digital
signal.
 Compute the available system margin.

After reading the topic, you will be able to understand the above relating to the
satellite communication system.
 Satellite Communication system model
The figure shows the simplified model of the satellite communication system. The
satellite can be accessed by many earth station that are in the visible zone of the
satellite. The earth station can share resources of the satellite, the band width of the
transponder, the time or the power. The symbol from all the earth station are received
by satellite received antenna and fed to the low noise amplifier (LNA). The satellite
receiver adds thermal noise to these signals. The noise being additive, can be
modeled as if it is generated in a separate source and added to the signal as shown
in the figure. The communication system in the satellite comprise of a received
antenna, a LNA receiver, a frequency translator, a local oscillator and a high power
amplifier (HPA). The electronic sub-system is termed as transponder. The receive
antenna also acts as a transmit antenna, and the transmitted and received signal are
isolated with a diplexer.
Noise

Tx Antenna Rx Antenna

ES 1 ES 1
Noise Satellite Transponder

LNA D/C HPA

Receiver
ES 2 ES 2
Transmitter

Uplink
Multiple Access

ES N ES N
Down link
 Basic Transmission Equation
What happened to the signal that leaves the transmitter power amplifier and
reaches the receiver’s low noise amplifier??
 This could be an uplink or down link.
 The radiated power in the direction of receiver experiences gain or losses
along the way from the transmitter to receiver.
 The transmission equation enables us to compute the ration of receive signal
to the noise power at the input of the receiver.
 This parameter is termed as carrier to noise ratio (C/N) dictates the quality of
demodulated signal at the receiver output.
 Hence by knowing the minimum C/N for an expected output quality, a system
designer will be able to choose various parameter in the link keeping the cost
of the system low.

Antenna Gain
 Let the power delivered by the power amplifier to the antenna is Pt Watts.
 Gain of the antenna is Gt
 Antenna, being a passive device, cannot provide gain like aw amplifier.
 The concept of the gain here is notional and is the measure of its directivity.
 An isotropic reference radiator, ideally a point source, radiates the energy is
all 4π radians of solid angle i.e. the radiation has spherical pattern

Unit area
on the
surface

Radius
 This sphere has the surface area of 4πR2 m2 at a distance ‘R’ from the center.
 Hence, the power flux density, i.e. the power per unit area at a distance ‘R’
from the source is given by
𝑝
𝐹 = 𝑡 2 𝑊/𝑚2 ---------1
4π𝑅
 However, a directional antenna does not radiate power in all direction, rather
concentrate in certain direction.
 The beam of the practical antenna is not a sphere but has a solid angle that is
less than 4π radian.
 If we consider p(ϴ) on the power flux density of a practical antenna in the
direction ϴ, then we define the gain of the antenna as
𝐺𝑎𝑖𝑛 (𝐺)
𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑖𝑛 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 ϴ
=
𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑠𝑜𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑐 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛.
𝑃(ϴ)
𝐺(ϴ)=𝑝𝑜 -----------2
⁄4𝜋
 The gain of the antenna is, thus its ability to concentrate the radiation is a
given radiation.
 The higher the concentration of the power the larger is the gain.
 The angle ϴ is the direction in which maximum power is transmitted by the
antenna (boresight of the antenna).
 The angle ϴ =0 along the boresight and the gain is the G(0).
 Eq 2 is also interpreted as the ratio of peak power to the average power in the
direction of the angle ‘ϴ’.
 This angle is measured from the boresight of the radiation pattern which in
the direction of maximum power radiation.
 The beam center for a symmetric beam is as shown below.
Antenna radiation
pattern
Antenna Gain at
boresight

Half power beam

width
Side lobes Beam width (3dB power down
from boresight)
 From the antenna theory, directivity of an aperture antenna in terms of
area and wave length is given by
4𝜋𝐴
𝐺= where A= Aperture area and λ=wave length
𝜆2
 All the power applied to a antenna is not radiated.
𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝐴𝑒
 An efficiency factor 𝜂𝐴 = =
𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝐴
4𝜋𝐴
Therefore , G=4πAe / λ2 =ηA. 2
𝜆
 For a circular aperture, such as a parabolic dish, the area may be
expressed in terms of diameter as A=πd2 /4, where d is the diameter
4𝜋𝐴 𝜋 𝐷 𝜋𝐷 2 2
 Hence 𝐺 = η𝐴 . 2 = η𝐴 2 =η𝐴 ( )2
𝜆 𝜆 𝜆
 Effective Isotropic radiated power (EIRP)
 As the transmitted antenna has gain defined as earlier, the radiated
power in the direction of the main lobe of the radiating pattern is larger
than one obtained with the hypothetical Omni directional radiator.
 Hence the power radiated from an antenna is defined in terms of the
effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) as power transmitted in watts
X Gain of the practical antenna.
 Which is 𝑃𝑡 ∗ 𝐺𝑡 (where Pt=transmitted power and Gt= Gain of the
Tx antenna)
 𝐸𝐼𝑅𝑃 = 𝑃𝑡𝐺𝑡

Flux density for a practical radiator

 Flux density at a distance R meter from a practical radiator is the power
received in the unit area at the distance R.
 For the practical radiator, the total power radiated in the beam center is
given by the EIRP.

𝑝𝑡 𝐺𝑡
 Hence the flux density at a distance ‘R’ is given by 𝐹 =
4π𝑅 2

Received power at a distance ‘R’

 If there is receiving antenna of aperture area ‘Ar’ at a distance ‘R’ from
the beam center, then received power
𝑃𝑟 = 𝐹𝑙𝑢𝑥 𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 ∗ 𝐴𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎
𝑝𝑡 𝐺𝑡
𝑃𝑟 = 𝐹 ∗ 𝐴𝑟 = ∗ 𝐴𝑟
4𝜋𝑅2
 Actually the effective area Ae=η𝐴 ∗ 𝐴𝑟
𝑝𝑡 𝐺𝑡 𝑝𝑡 𝐺𝑡
𝑃𝑟 = ∗ 𝐴 𝑒 = ∗ η𝐴 ∗ 𝐴𝑟
4𝜋𝑅2 4𝜋𝑅2

 Again from the antenna theory, we know that

𝐺 = 4𝜋𝐴𝑒 / 𝜆2 (𝐺𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑎)
𝑝𝑡 𝐺𝑡 𝐺𝑟 𝜆2 𝑝𝑡 𝐺𝑡 𝐺𝑟
 Hence 𝑃𝑟 = 4𝜋𝑅2 ∗ = 4𝜋𝑅 2
4𝜋 ( )
𝜆
 Where Gr=Gain of the receiving antenna
 From the above expression it is clear that the transmit power ‘Pt’ is
amplified by transmit and received antenna gain.
4𝜋𝑅 2
 However it is attenuated by the factor ( )
𝜆
4𝜋𝑅 2
 The factor ( ) is known as the free space path less or simply the
𝜆
path loss.
 Hence it is evident from the expression that path loss is proportional
to the square of the distance and square of the frequency.
 It is denoted as Lp.
4𝜋𝑅 2
 Lp= { } As (λ=C/f)
𝜆
𝑝𝑡 𝐺𝑡 𝐺𝑟 𝐸𝐼𝑅𝑃∗𝐺𝑟
 Therefore the link equation is =
𝐿𝑝 𝐿𝑝
 Or [Pr] dB =[EIRP] dB +[Lp]dB
 Here after Lp may be written as PL conveys the same meaning i.e.
4𝜋𝑅 2
path loss={
𝜆
}