T 703 Modern Communication Systems

MODULE 3

HISTORY OF SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS The first artificial satellite was placed in orbit by the Russians in 1957. That satellite, called Sputnik, signaled the beginning of an era. The United States, who was behind the Russians, made an all-out effort to catch up, and launched Score in 1958. That was the first satellite with the primary purpose of communications. The first regular satellite communications service was used by the Navy in 1960. The moon was used to bounce teletypewriter signals between Hawaii and Washington, D.C. During the early 1960s, the Navy used the moon as a medium for passing messages between ships at sea and shore stations. This method of communications proved reliable when other methods failed. Military satellite communications technology was at a low level until 1965. At that time high quality voice transmissions were conducted between a satellite and two earth stations. Experience with satellite communications has demonstrated that satellite systems can satisfy many military requirements. They are reliable, survivable, secure, and a cost effective method of telecommunications. You can easily see that satellites are the ideal, if not often the only, solution to problems of communicating with highly mobile forces. Satellites, if properly used, provide much needed options to large, fixed-ground installations. For the past fifty years, the Navy has used high-frequency (hf) transmissions as the principal method of sending messages. In the 1970s, the hf spectrum was overcrowded and "free" frequencies were at a premium. Hf jamming and electronic countermeasures (ECM) techniques became highly sophisticated during that period. As a result the need for new and advanced long-range transmission methods became apparent. Communications via satellite is a natural outgrowth of modern technology and of the continuing demand for greater capacity and higher quality in communications. In the past, the various military branches have had the resources to support their communications needs. Predicted usage indicates that large-scale improvements will have to be made to satisfy future needs of the Department of Defense. These needs will require greater capacity for long-haul communications to previously inaccessible

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T 703 Modern Communication Systems areas. Satellite communications has the most promise for satisfying these future requirements. DEFENSE COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE PROGRAM (DCSP) The Defense Communications Satellite Program (DCSP) was initiated by the Secretary of Defense in 1962. Phase I of the program was given the title Initial Defense Communications Satellite Program (IDCSP). The first satellite launch occurred in June 1966 when seven experimental satellites were placed into orbit. The final launch of this program consisted of eight satellites and occurred in June 1968. DEFENSE SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM (DSCS) PHASE II The Phase II Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCP Phase II) has changed from an all-analog communications system to an all-digital communications system. The performance capability provided by the Phase II DSCS is limited by equipment availability. Extensive digital traffic capability has become common. You can credit this to the availability of digital modems (modulator/demodulator) and broadband equipment. Overall performance of the Phase II DSCS is a great improvement over the capabilities provided by Phase I DSCS. The Phase II satellites provide a great increase in effective radiated power and rf bandwidths. You will find these satellite configurations use wide coverage and narrow beam antennas. They provide an extensive range of communications services and capabilities. (This will be further discussed later, in this chapter.) FUNDAMENTAL SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM A satellite communications system uses satellites to relay radio transmissions between earth terminals. The two types of communications satellites you will study are ACTIVE and PASSIVE. A passive satellite only reflects received radio signals back to earth. An active satellite acts as a REPEATER; it amplifies signals received and then retransmits them back to earth. This increases signal strength at the receiving terminal to a higher level than would be available from a passive satellite. A typical operational link involves an active satellite and two or more earth terminals. One station transmits to the satellite on a frequency called the UP-LINK frequency. The satellite then amplifies the signal, converts it to the DOWN-LINK frequency, and transmits it back to earth. The signal is next picked up by the receiving terminal. Figure 4-1 shows a satellite handling several combinations of links simultaneously.

There are different types of satellites and certain terminologies which comes through the discussion are first defined in this context.
Prograde orbit The orbit in which satellite moves I the same direction as the earths rotation. Retrograde orbit An orbit in which the satellite moves I a direction counter to earths rotation. Prepared By Ms.Sreenu.G, Department Of Computer Science, RASET

T 703 Modern Communication Systems Only three types of orbits are used by communication satellites. Inclined , equatorial or polar. Inclined orbits All orbits except those that travel directly above equator or or over south or north pole. An equatorial orbit is one in which satellite rotates directly above the equator usually in a circular path. All geo synchronous satellites have equatorial orbits. In a polar orbit satellite rotate in a path over north and south pole perpendicular to equatorial plane. Angle of inclination The angle between the orbital plane and earths equatorial plane measured at ascending node from equator to orbit going from East to North. Ascending node - The point where the orbit crosses the equatorial plane going from South to North. Descending Node The point where the orbit crosses the equatorial plane going from North to South. Longest line within an ellipse passing through its center is called Major axis. Shortest line within an ellipse passing through its center is called minor axis. Apogee The position of the orbit farthest from earth is called apogee. Perigee The point of orbit closest to earth is called perigee. Line of Nodes line joining the ascending and descending nodes through the center of earth is called line of nodes. Line of apsides Line joining the perigee and apogee through the center of earth is called line of apsides.

A geostationary orbit (GEO)

Is a geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth's equator (0 latitude), with orbital eccentricity of zero. From the ground, a geostationary object appears motionless in the sky and is therefore the orbit of most interest to operators of artificial satellites (including communication and television satellites). Due to the constant 0 latitude, satellite locations may differ by longitude only. The idea of a geosynchronous satellite for communication purposes was first published in 1928 by Herman Potonik. The geostationary orbit was first popularized by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in 1945 as a useful orbit for communications satellites. As a result this is sometimes referred to as the Clarke Prepared By Ms.Sreenu.G, Department Of Computer Science, RASET

T 703 Modern Communication Systems orbit. Similarly, the Clarke Belt is the part of space approximately 35,786 km above mean sea level in the plane of the equator where near-geostationary orbits may be achieved. Geostationary orbits are useful because they cause a satellite to appear stationary with respect to a fixed point on the rotating Earth. As a result, an antenna can point in a fixed direction and maintain a link with the satellite. The satellite orbits in the direction of the Earth's rotation, at an altitude of approximately 35,786 km (22,240 statute miles) above ground. This altitude is significant because it produces an orbital period equal to the Earth's period of rotation, known as the sidereal day. Antenna Look Angles To optimize the performance of satellite communication, direction of maximum gain of an earth station antenna (bore sight) must be directly pointed at the satellite. To ensure earth station antenna alignment , two angles must be determined .They are Azimuth angle and Elevation angle. Angle of Elevation or Elevation Angle : It is the vertical angle formed between direction of travel of electromagnetic wave radiated from an Earth station antenna pointing towards satellite and horizontal plane. If elevation angle is less , wave will have to travel more distance through the earths atmosphere and will suffer more loss and get more contaminated by noise. 5 degree is considered minimum angle of elevation. Angle of Azimuth - It is the horizontal angular distance from a reference direction either in the southern or northern most point of horizon. Azimuth angle is the horizontal pointing angle of an earth station antenna measured clockwise in degrees from North.

Station keeping The equatorial bulge Earth causes geo stationary satellites to drift to one of the of the more stable points. Counter forces have to be applied by jets or retro rockets to maintain the satellite within the pre assigned window of space. This process is known as station keeping. Satellite system consists of 3 basic sections, a up- link, a transponder and a down -link. Up-link is for the transmission to satellite , transponder to reflect it back to the receiving earth stations , and down-link for the reception from the transponder. Up-Link Model Prepared By Ms.Sreenu.G, Department Of Computer Science, RASET

T 703 Modern Communication Systems

Primary component is the earth station transmitter. Transmitter consists f an IF modulator , IF to RF microwave up- converter, a high power amplifier like Klystron tube or Traveling Wave Tube, and some means of band limiting the final o/p spectrum. The IF modulator converts the i/p base band signals to either an FM, PSK, or QAM modulated IF. The up converter converts IF to appropriate RF carrier frequency. HPA provides adequate i/p sensitivity and o/p power to propagate the signal to the satellite transponder. Down Link Model

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T 703 Modern Communication Systems Down-link model Includes Band pass filter, Low Noise Amplifier, RF to IF down converter. BPF limits i/p power to LNA which is a high sensitive low noise amplifier such as tunnel diode amplifier parametric amplifier .RF to IF converter is a mixer / band pass filter combination which converts the received RF signal to an IF frequency Multiple Accessing Methods

Multiple access implies that more than one user has one or more radio channel or transponder within a satellite communication channel. FDMA, TDMA, CDMA are the most commonly used multiple access methods. With FDMA each Earth stations transmissions are assigned specific up-link and down-link frequency bands which may be either pre assigned or demand assigned . Hence FDMA transmissions separated in frequency domain and hence share the total available transponder band width as well as transponder power. Where as TDMA transmission are separated in time domain and the entire transponder band width and power are used for each transmission but for only a prescribed interval of time. With CDMA there are no restriction on time and band width but transmissions are separated through envelope encryption/ decryption methods by encoding the chip code. To receive the transmission the earth station must know the chip code.

FDMA FDMA is a method of multiple accessing where a given RF band width is divided into smaller frequency bands called subdivisions. Each subdivision has its own IF carrier frequency. A control mechanism is used to ensure that two or more earth stations do not transmit in the same subdivision at the same time. Essentially control mechanism assign a receive station assign a receive a station for each system. In demand assignment system control mechanism is used to establish or terminate the voice band links between sources and destination of each earth station. So any sub division may by used by any of participating station at any given time. TDMA

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T 703 Modern Communication Systems

With TDMA each earth station transmits a short burst of information during a specific time slot within a TDMA frame. The bursts must be synchronized so that each station burst arrives at satellite at different times.

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T 703 Modern Communication Systems The transmissions from all stations are synchronized to a reference burst. The preamble preceeds reference burst . UW sequence used to establish a precise time reference for the earth station to synchronize transmission of its burst. UW is a string of 20 successive binary 1s terminated with a 0. Each earth station receiver demodulates and integrates UW (Unique Word) sequence. The integrator threshold detector are designed so that the threshold voltage is reached precisely when the last bit of UW sequence is integrated. This generates a correlative spike at the o/p of threshold detector at the exact time of the UW sequence. Station synchronizes the transmission of its carrier to the concurrence of UW correlation spike. Each station waits a different length of time before it retransmits. This gap in time is known as Guard Time or GT. Preamble is quite analogues to reference burst. CDMA

With CDMA there are no restriction on time and band width but transmissions are separated through envelope encryption/ decryption methods by encoding the chip code. To receive the transmission the earth station must know the chip code. To receive particular earth stations transmission a receive station must know the chip code for station. Prepared By Ms.Sreenu.G, Department Of Computer Science, RASET

T 703 Modern Communication Systems In the encoder i/p data is multiplexed by a unique chip code. The product code PSK modulates IF carrier , which is up converted to RF transmission. In the decoder RF is down converted to IF , a coherent PSK carrier is recovered. The chip code is acquired along with that to synchronize the receiver stations code generator. The recovered synchronized chip code multiplies the recovered PSK carrier plus chip code. This is compared with the received IF signal in the correlater. Correlater subtracts recovered PSK carrier +chip code +from received PSK carrier +chip code+ data. Resultant is the data. Correlater looks for correlation between the incoming coded signal and the recovered chip code. In CDMA the correlater must compare the recovered chip code with the entire received spectrum and separate from it only the chip code from the desired earth station transmitter. Consequently one chip code of an earth station should not correlate with those of other stations. GPS basic idea only

Satellite radio navigation Navigation is the art and science of plotting , ascertaining directing the course of movements . That is knowing your position able to find your way around. In radio navigation . Position is determined by measuring the travel time of an electromagnetic wave as it moves from transmitter to receiver

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T 703 Modern Communication Systems

GPS is a method of radio navigation. Position is determined by measuring the travel time of an electromagnetic wave as it moves from transmitter to receiver. There are 100 such radio navigation systems used currently. Some use terrestrial and other satellite broad cast transmitter. Most popular and current ones are 1. Decca(terrestrial) 2. Loran 3. Omega 4. Navstar GPS. GPS services Standard Positioning System(SPS) Positioning and timing service available to all GPS users on a continuous world wide basis with no direct charge. Available on 95% of time within 100m horizontal and 156 m vertical .Time delay is 340 nano seconds. Precise Positioning Service(PPS) Prepared By Ms.Sreenu.G, Department Of Computer Science, RASET

T 703 Modern Communication Systems PPS is a highly accurate military positioning , velocity and time service that is available on a world wide basis to authorized users. Can be used on 95% of time with accuracy 22m horizontal, 27.7 m vertical . Access time is 200 Nano seconds. GPS system works by determining how long it takes a radio signal transmitted from a satellite to reach a land based receiver and using that time to calculate the distance between satellite and earth station receiver.( distance= velocity X Time )

Prepared By Ms.Sreenu.G, Department Of Computer Science, RASET