Fundamentals of Satellite Communications

Lawrence N. Goeller OASD/PA&E 12 February 2004

Outline
Satellites and Communications Frequencies Amplifiers Antennas and Antenna Gain Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR): The Link Budget Equation Carrier Waves, Modulation, and Bandwidth Systems: Narrowband, Wideband, and Protected Summary

Geostationary Satellites
Communications satellites are like very tall relay towers Most communications satellites use Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbits Key concept: GEO sats appear to stand motionless in the sky Satellites are easy to find, track No handoffs required Fixed full-period coverage areas Very valuable orbital slots Orbit must be circular Orbit Must be equatorial Only one altitude (for 24 hours) GEO is high; 1/10th of way to moon Speed of light c = 3 108 m/sec Round trip signal time: ~0.25 sec

About 6 RE ~36,000 km Relay Tower

RE, Radius of Earth ~6300 km

Satcom Transmission Frequencies

Satellite communications can only take place at certain frequencies Below few hundred MHz, will not penetrate ionosphere Above few tens GHz, will not penetrate rain or atmosphere So carrier waves in these bands used; band names from radar world Lower range: UHF, L, S-band Middle: C-band, X-band High: Ku, Ka-band, EHF Special case: optical (laser) Key comm. satellite design factor: carrier frequency band Assigned commercial or govt. 100 MHz Low frequencies reflected by ionosphere

High frequencies absorbed by rain Highest frequencies absorbed by atmosphere

rain Ionosphere

atmosphere

1 GHz

10 GHz

100 GHz

Satcom Spectrum Chart

Commercial SATCOM Services
INMARSAT, ODYSSEY, IRIDIUM, GLOBALSTAR, MSAT, ELLIPSO Coml. UHF ODYSSEY, INMARSAT INTELSAT, GLOBALSTAR, ELLIPSO INMARSAT INTELSAT, VSATS IRIDIUM, ODYSSEY TELEDESIC, IRIDIUM, ODYSSEY, SPACEWAY (PCS Services) Coml. Ka Coml. L Coml. S Coml. C Coml. Ku Coml. K

LEOSTAR
300 MHz 3 GHz 30 GHz

VHF

UHF

SHF

EHF

VHF

UHF
1GHz

L
2GHz

S
4GHz

C
8GHz

X
12GHz

Ku
18GHz

K
27GHz

Ka
40GHz

V
75GHz

UFO MUOS

175 MHz

SGLS Weather NASA

150 MHz

Downlink 500 MHz Uplink 500 MHz

DSCS

Downlink 1 GHz

ACTS

MILSTAR, AEHF, GBS

Downlink 1 GHz

Uplink 1 GHz

GBS

DSCS

ACTS
Uplink 1 GHz

Military UHF Band

Government S-Band

Military X-Band

AEHF Uplink 2 GHz

MILSTAR*

Government Exploratory KaBand

Military EHF

Government / Military SATCOM Services

Comm: Transporting Bits

Digital Communications is about moving bits from one place to another Communications satellites are not sources or destinations Other satellites often are Physics: Communications via radio waves must use bandwidth and power Comm means bits per second (bps), with an associated error rate Power, in watts, is generated by transmitter and collected by receiver Bandwidth, in hertz (Hz), is the range of frequencies this power uses Both Power & Bandwidth required Communications satellite as a relay Uplink Downlink

Shannons Law

S Rb = W log 2 1 + N
Data rate (bps) Bandwidth (Hz) Signal power to noise power ratio (watts / watts)

Transmitters and HPAs

High Power Amplifiers
Signal in Signal & Noise out High Power Amplifier (HPA) Transmit antenna 1 LNA 2 3 4 Etc.

Receive antenna

Satellites and terminals employ multiple stages of amplifiers 9 to 12 orders of magnitude of amplification common in GEO satellites Last stage of amplifier chain is called High Power Amplifier (HPA) Several types of high-freq amplifiers, with names like Klystron, Magnetron Very popular one: Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier (TWTA) TWTAs widely used in satellites; good efficiency, high power, reliable Up to 100s watts in satellites, 1000s of watts in large terminals Solid-state amplifiers (SSAs) also; rugged, but less power, efficiency HPAs generally: The higher the frequency, the harder to do

Antennas and Antenna Gain

Antennas radiate and collect radio waves They do not radiate equally in all directions Except for mythical isotropic antennas, useful as a reference Antennas can be high-gain (highly directional) or low-gain

Isotropic gain pattern

Dipole Antenna Gain: Pattern symmetric about antenna axis

Gain pattern is like a contour map Lines represent constant power density High gain pattern (watts per square meter) If only one line, it is usually at the halfpower contour Transmit gain GT expresses concentration PT GT = EIRP (Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power) Commercial spot beam coverage of Europe

Diffraction and Beam Width

In geometry, parallel lines remain parallel forever In physics, sharp-edged wave trains diverge past the Rayleigh range Diffraction; all waves do this Beam stabilizes at angle c = f = freq. wavelength = 3 108 m/sec Medium large

DT

Small D, Low Freq Small D, High Freq Medium Small

70

DT

Large D, Low Freq

Large D, High Freq

in degrees; and D in same units

Rule of thumb: GT = (4/2)AT, A = area

Receive Gain and Pointing

Transmitter R Receiver Surface area of sphere with radius R: Asphere = 4R2 Surface area of receive antenna: Arec All transmitted power that does not hit receive antenna is lost to free space

Arec G = rec Asphere LFS

Receive gain matters for pointing accuracy: Transmitter

Grec = receive antenna gain = gain it would have if transmitting LFS defined as free space loss Receivers

OK Not OK

The higher the frequency, or the larger the receive antennas diameter, the more accurately it must point

Other Loss Terms

Power that is transmitted but not received is lost 17 Free Space loss, LFS Other types of losses too Absorption or scattering Atm i by rain, air, ionosphere R10 Absorption by trees, i R25 buildings, etc. i Mis-pointing of either antenna Losses inside terminals Collectively, Lother = Lo
1.10 3

Rain and Atmospheric Losses

100

O2
10

Attenuation (dB/km)

Rain (25 mm/hr) Rain (10 mm/hr)

H20

0.1

Atmosphere
0.01

3 0.001 1 10 1 1

5 6

8 10 f i Frequency

20

(GHz)

30 40 50 60 80 100 100

Signal and Noise

Physics again: detectors fundamentally have to detect energy Energy per second is power (in watts) S and N are both powers Ratio of S to N is what matters There is always internal noise in receiver Amplifiers themselves generate it! Noise power formula: N = kTW N = noise power (watts), T = temp, k = Boltzmannss constant, W = bandwidth Amps are poor blackbodies! So have to define Teff, or effective noise temp. Also external noise: sky, sun, rain, Earth (if looking down); all affect Teff Man-made: nearby users, jamming Received signal power: Threshold detector can be 100% accurate

Noise power in receiver

S+N: Threshold Detection can generate errors Room T: 293K

200K amp Teff

75K amp

Receivers and LNAs

Low Noise Amplifiers
Signal Sin (Watts) Receive antenna Consider each stage has Gain G, Noise N 1 2 G1(Sin+N1) G2G1(Sin + N1) + G2(N2) G3G2G1(Sin + N1) + G3G2(N2) + G3(N3) 3 4 Etc. High Power Amplifier (HPA) Sout+Nout (Watts) Transmit antenna

Low Noise Amplifier (LNA)

The noise generated in the first amplifier is amplified by every successive stage Noise from other stages amplified by successively smaller number of stages So it is worth paying extra to minimize the noise in the first stage Appropriately called Low Noise Amplifiers or LNAs Common LNA Teff: 200K for X-band, 500K for Ka-band

The Link Budget Equation

The Link Budget Equation calculates the signal to noise ratio at the receiver.

S PT GT GR 1 = N LFS Lo k Teff W
We can write: S = Rb Eb And also: No = N / W (watts per hertz)

S Eb Rb PT GT G R = = N N o W LFS Lo kTeff W
Expressing in terms of data rate Rb:

P G G ( Eb / N o ) Rb = T T R LFS Lo kTeff

S: Received signal power, watts N: Noise power in receiver, watts PT: Transmitted power, watts GT: Antenna gain of transmitter GR: Antenna gain of reciever LFS: Free space loss Lo: Other loss terms K: Boltzmanns constant Teff: Effective Noise Temperature W: Bandwidth considered Eb: Signal energy per bit No: Noise power per hertz Rb: Data rate in bits per second

The link budget equation

Important: Rb is associated with a specific bit error rate (BER)

Carrier Waves and Modulation

Carriers transmit power from one place to another Necessary but not sufficient for communications Carriers do not carry information in the comm sense of this word Carriers do not carry information in the communications sense You have to jiggle (modulate) them; info is in the jiggles Carriers have three key properties Amplitude, Frequency, and Phase Any of these can be modulated And combinations Unmodulated Carrier 0 1 0

Amplitude Modulation

Frequency Modulation

Phase Modulation

Modulation and Bandwidth

Bandwidth Physics: Amplitude Unmodulated carrier: 0 0 0 0 Time t 0 1 1 0 1 Sine wave: Monochromatic, so bandwidth = 0 Frequency f Modulated carrier has bandwidth Higher symbol rate, more bandwidth Symbol in 0 1 2 3 Bits out 00 01 10 11

Transmitted symbols 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1

modem 0123 00011011

Amplitude

0 1 2 3 0 2 3 1 0 2

BW depends on symbol rate, but not bits/symbol!

Bandwidth efficient modulation; more bps/Hz. But also more power required!

Channel Encoding
Shannons Law Due to noise, some errors are inevitable Can we use computers to detect and even correct received errors before more processing? Yes. Channel Encoding: Add extra bits to message in clever ways to help receiver ID errors Allows less power in noisy environments But requires more bps (thus BW) Channel encoding allows you to trade bandwidth for power Specifically, vs Eb/No

S Rb = W log 2 1 + N
Channel encoding lets you balance these two quantities Coding rates expressed by r r = 1/2 = rate one-half coding means 1 user bit for 2 sent bits (very robust, not BW efficient) Other common rates: r = 3/4, 7/8 Uncoded would be r = 1 Spectral efficiency (gamma): = users bits per second / Hertz ( includes modulation & coding)

What Modems Do
Modems do the following: MO-DEMs modulate and demodulate a carrier wave with a baseband signal Modify A, F, , combos, with specified number of bits per symbol Or: Convert bps to hertz and back, at a BER That is: You give modem an Eb/No It returns a Bit Error Rate Modem specs often state a coder/decoder algorithm; this is a separate function, but is usually included in the same box today Transponded vs Processing satellites Former satellites do not demodulate the signals on board, merely amplify them Latter have modems; adds weight, $$

Comtech EF Data 8650 (Used with DSCS satellites) From the spec sheet:
Viterbi Decoder, QPSK BER 1/2 3/4 7/8 10-3 4.2 5.2 6.4 10-6 6.1 7.5 8.6 10-8 7.2 8.8 9.9 16QAM w/ R/S BER 3/4 7/8 10-4 7.9 9.3 10-5 8.1 9.6 8.4 9.8 10-6 -7 10 8.6 10.0 -8 8.8 10.3 10 10-9 9.0 10.5

Viterbi w/ R/S, QPSK BER 1/2 3/4 10-6 4.1 5.6 10-8 4.4 6.0 10-10 5.0 6.3 Implied:

numbers in tables are Eb/No (dB) Not shown:

Narrowband Satellites
Low gain antennas transmit power in many directions So limited power collected Affecting data rate So OK to use low end of frequency window, where there is less BW Interference limits system users But accurate pointing not required Comm on the move (COTM) Omni-directional, nearly Ideal length of dipole antenna (for radiating or collecting power): Quarter wavelength (/4) > 3 meters, ionosphere reflection < 10 cm, not enough surface area /4 = 25 cm at 300 MHz (UHF) UFO, MUOS; 5/25 kHz, COTM UHF Follow-on (UFO) Spacecraft 225-400 MHz band

Narrowband Satcom associated with voice, low data rate; also COTM, rain/foliage penetration, simple and inexpensive terminals

Wideband Satellites
High gain antennas transmit, collect lots of power Supports high capacity But high bandwidth also needed So higher bands with more total frequency used X-band: 500 MHz Ka-band: 1000 MHz Terminals can reuse frequencies because the beams are so narrow Have to stop and point: no COTM Exception: Navy, some aircraft Satellites: (DSCS, GBS, WGS): Tradeoff between coverage and capacity DSCS III Wideband Milsatcom system

3 beam: 1.5 Mbps 1 beam: 24 Mbps Same Power (120W) Wideband gain patterns for GBS

Protected Systems
Protection can be tied to any data rate But usually a tradeoff with capacity Protection has come to mean three things: Jammer resistance (Antijam, or AJ) Jamming is essentially adding noise, thus decreasing S/N Countermeasures include small beams, nulling, special waveforms Performance in nuclear environment High altitude nucs disrupt ionosphere; requires anti-scintillation (AS) Essentially, intermittent loss of signal Stealth: low probability of interception (LPI) or detection (LPD) Use narrow beams, waveform approaches, short bursts Milstar II 44 GHz up (BW: 2GHz), 20 GHz down (BW: 1 GHz) Low Capacity, Good Protection

Ionosphere Nuclear Effects

User

Jammer

User

Summary
Communications is a complex field; Satcom even more so! Many pieces, but each manageable Key concept: Need both power and bandwidth for communications Power: Link Budget Equation Bandwidth: Modulation schemes Coding can balance the two Key concept: Satellite frequencies are well-suited to different missions Consider capacity, rain, foliage, COTM, protection, cost Some Common Satcom Tradeoffs Capacity vs Coverage area Capacity vs. Mobility Capacity vs. Protection Link Availability vs. Frequency Protection vs. Frequency

Antenna Arrays
Waves undergo a phenomenon called interference Not noticeable for different signals But for same signals (with perhaps different relative phase, amplitude), patterns can be formed Used in many fields Radio, cell towers (dipole antennas) Helical antennas High gain too: Phased Arrays Cell tower phased array

Phased Array of dipoles (view from top)

Expensive, thermal management issues Satellites: many beams from one aperture Terminals: Rapid beam steering

Airborne Wideband Terminal (AWT)

Narrowband/Wideband Synergy
As of 2004
Narrowband Frequencies: UHF, L-Band Unaffected by rain, atm. Data rates: 75 bps 64 kbps Low-gain antennas Comm on the move Decent reception Uses Single voice channel Low rate data (text, data links) Wideband Frequencies: C, X, Ku, Ka-bands Rain effects as freq. increases Data rates: 128 kbps Gbps

High-gain antennas Must point antenna at satellite Limited coverage areas Uses Trunked voice; VTCs High rate data (imagery, video)