Communication Subsystem of RASAT

Dilad z, Nazl Deniz Kahyaolu, Muhsin Blcek, Emrah nc, Tunahan Krlmaz, Celal Dudak, Hacer Sunay, Volkan Akan, zlem en
Communication Systems Group TUBITAK UZAY- Space Technologies Research Institute 06531 ODTU Ankara, TURKEY dilsad.icoz@uzay.tubitak.gov.tr
Abstract RASAT will be the first satellite designed and manufactured in Turkey and it is planned to be launched in 2011. RASAT is a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) observation microsatellite with a mass of around 100 kg. The main purpose of this mission is remote sensing with use of a high resolution optical imager. The communication subsystem is one of the primary systems for Earth observation satellites. It is used for telecommand/telemetry signaling besides downlink data transfer. In RASATs communication subsystem, there are mainly five modules. For commissioning phase and as back-up of the downlink/uplink operations, Ultra High Frequency (UHF) / Very High Frequency (VHF) modules are used. The primary uplink is provided by the S-Band receivers and the primary downlink is provided by the SBand transmitters on-board. X-Band transmitter module, which is designed and developed by engineers at TUBITAK-UZAY, is the experimental payload of RASAT communication subsystem. Keywords- RASAT, Communication System, LEO satellite

The S-Band receivers use 9k6 bps FSK modulation in commercial space band. Two patch antennas will be used for each receiver, one on the earth-facing facet and the other on the space-facing facet of the satellite. For each S-Band transmitter, a directional Quadrifilar Helix (QFH) antenna is utilized on RASAT. S-Band transmitters are capable of 2 Mbps data rate with binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation and they provide at least 2 W RF output power. X-Band transmitter is one of the experimental payloads on RASAT, providing high data transfer rate for downlink of image data. This module has three different data rates (25 Mbps, 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps), two different modulation scheme options (quadrature phase shift keying - QPSK and offset QPSK) and 7 W (38.5 dBm) output power which satisfies the link budget for a LEO satellite [2]. This module will have space heritage with successful launch of RASAT. In order to prove the space conditions compatibility of a satellite module, the engineering qualifying model of that module should be exposed to a set of tests, namely thermal vacuum test, vibration test and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) test. These tests are realized for the X-Band transmitter, the first two at TUBTAK UZAY facility in Ankara and the EMC test at a private facility in Gebze. As well, thermal vacuum and vibration tests are performed for the other modules which have space heritage from BILSAT-1. In the following sections, the specifications of each communication module are presented together with the results of the environmental tests. II. UHF TRANSMITTER

I.

INTRODUCTION

After successful completion of BILSAT-1 project in 2003, TUBITAK-UZAY (formerly TUBITAK-BILTEN) started RASAT project to develop and manufacture small satellite technologies covering all phases from design to production and in-orbit operation in 2004. For this purpose, all the infrastructure required, which includes assembly and integration rooms, laboratories for environmental and functional testing and a satellite mission control ground station, is constructed at TBTAK-UZAYs premises [1]. In RASAT, the commissioning phase will be achieved by UHF/VHF modules, since omni-directional coverage required in that phase can only be provided by UHF/VHF antennas of the system. S-Band, being the nominal operation system, has relative directionality; the primary uplink is provided by the SBand receivers and the primary downlink is provided by the SBand transmitters. UHF/VHF and S-Band modules are the core modules of RASAT and they have space heritage from SSTLs previous missions.. On RASAT, the core receiver modules are hot redundant. On the other hand, the core transmitter modules are cold redundant on-board due to power consumption. The VHF receivers use 9k6 bps frequency shift keying (FSK) modulation scheme for uploading and four blade antennas are utilized for omni-directional coverage. The UHF transmitter comprises of two transmitters, with 3 W and 10 W RF outputs, respectively. Modulation scheme is FSK here, with 9k6, 38k4 and 76k8 data rate choices for downlink.

The UHF transmitter mainly transmits real-time telemetry data that is processed by on-board computer (OBC) to the ground station. It synthesizes the clock signal for the OBC which uses this for telemetry data transmission. UHF transmitter, which has omni-directional coverage and a long flight heritage, is also a back-up module for S-Band and XBand transmitters. The module is cold redundant due to power constraints of RASAT. The operating temperature range of the module is -20C to +50C. UHF module is housed by a microtray and the mass is approximately 2 kg. There are two UHF transmitter chains placed on the same micro-tray in which the RF output powers are the only difference. One of the transmitter chains has 3W RF output and the other transmitter chain has 10W RF output and they are

This work has been supported by RASAT Satellite Development Project which is financed by DPT (State Planning Organization of Turkey) under grant contract no 2007K120030.

named as Tx0 and Tx1, respectively. The carrier frequency of the transmitter is 437.4 MHz. The modulation type is continuous phase FSK (CPFSK) with square root raised cosine (RRC) filtering. The data rates of the transmitter are 9.6 kbps, 38.4 kbps and 76.8 kbps. The block diagram of the transmitter module is shown in Figure 1.
CAN I/F

rejection of out of band signals and passes the RF signal with a minimum attenuation. The Tx switch circuit is used to select one of the two transmitter chain outputs (3W chain and 10W chain) and pass the selected chains RF signal to the antennas. The flight model of the module is shown in Figure 2.

Modulator

Synthesiser

Driver Amplifier

Intermediate Amplifier

Directional Coupler

TX Filter TX0 Chain

DC/DC Converters TX1 Chain Modulator Synthesiser

TX Switch

Driver Amplifier

Intermediate Amplifier

Power Amplifier

Directional Coupler

TX Filter

CAN I/F

Figure 2. UHF Flight Model

Figure 1. Block Diagram of UHF Transmitter

Thermal test results of the Tx0 transmitter chain for 9k6 data rate are given in Table I.
TABLE I. THERMAL TEST RESULTS OF UHF TX0 (9K6) -20 C 34.6 7 3 YES +20 C 34.8 7 1 YES +50 C 34.4 8 4.8 YES

UHF transmitter module has two DC/DC converters for each chain. One is 28/15V converter and the other one is 28/5V converter. They feed all the circuits in the module. The modulator circuit generates RRC shape pre-distorted pulse which is used to modulate a constant envelope FM carrier wave. This circuit synthesizes the required clock and amplitude deviation changes required for multi-rate FSK. The modulator circuit scrambles the digital data in order to minimize the number of concurrent 1s in the transmitted data. The analog output data from the modulator is connected to the modulation input of the synthesizer and it is used to modulate the information onto the RF carrier signal. The synthesizer circuit produces the RF signal. It is based on a phase locked loop (PLL) chip and a (voltage-controlled oscillator) VCO. The RF signal has poor long term drift characteristic. This is the reason for synthesizer circuit locks the RF signal to a very stable crystal oscillator. The circuit also contains a P87C592 micro-controller. The micro-controller contains 8 A/D inputs that are used for telemetry monitoring within the module. The amplifier chains are used for increasing RF power of the modulated signal. Tx0 has two amplifier stages and Tx1 has three amplifier stages. The driver amplifier is a thermally stabilized, class AB RF amplifier. The heart of the circuit is the Motorola MRF313 RF transistor. The input and output of this device is matched to 50 ohm by using L-matching circuits. The intermediate amplifier is also a class AB RF amplifier. The main component of the circuit is NEC 2559 transistor. Lmatching circuits are used to match the input and output of the transistor. The power amplifier is built around a Motorola MRF641 transistor. The input and output matching circuits are L-matching circuits with series DC blocking capacitors. The gain of the power amplifier is 6 dB in the flight model of the module. The directional coupler board is a microstrip coupler that monitors the forward and reverse RF powers and gives an analog telemetry value by using AM detector. The transmit (Tx) filter circuit is a lumped element filter which provides

Temperature RF Output Power (dBm) Frequency Deviation (KHz) Carrier Drift (KHz) Spurious < -40dBc?

III.

VHF RECEIVER

On RASAT there are two hot redundant VHF receivers that are switched on automatically when the satellite leaves the launcher vehicle. VHF receivers are used in commissioning phase and as back-up of the uplink operations; and for omnidirectional coverage four blade antennas are employed. The receivers were thermally tested at a range of -20 to +50C which is the estimated range for RASAT at an altitude of approximately 700 km. Both receivers are housed in one nano-tray and each is about 0.5 kg. VHF receiver module is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. VHF Receiver Module

VHF receiver module mainly consists of two sections, a digital circuitry and an RF section which is separated by screening can from the digital part. In the RF section, there exist; a low pass filter (LPF) to compete interference from the transmitters, a 20 MHz wideband pass filter with in-band insertion loss of 1.9 dB, a low noise amplifier (LNA) with 1318 dB gain and <1.5 dB noise figure, a narrow band pass filter with approximately 3 MHz bandwidth and better than 4 dB insertion loss, a dual Butler oscillator and an FM receiver IC with related circuit elements as illustrated in Figure 4.

Some of the test results at room temperature for the VHF receivers are summarized in Table II and bit-error-rate (BER) curves of receiver are given in Figure 6.
TABLE II. Parameters DC Power (at 28V) IIP3 (input) Compression (input) Image Signal Rejection Equivalent Noise Figure Min. Detected Signal TEST RESULTS AT ROOM TEMPERATURE VHF Rx0 672 mW -39 dBm -54 dBm 95 dB 11 dB -115 dBm VHF Rx1 644 mW -40 dBm -55 dBm 93 dB 11.5 dB -112 dBm

From antenna LPF BPF Amplifier BPF Crystal Filter Ceramic Limiter Filter Demodulator

10

BER Curves BER(Ambient) BER(Hot) BER(Cold)

Figure 4. Block Diagram of VHF Receiver

10

-1

The digital circuitry consists of Controller Area Network (CAN) controller which is responsible for telecommand, telemetry and command decoding; and also an FSK demodulator is used to recover the 9k6 FSK modulated data. The received data can be either asynchronous or synchronous, with a clock generated by the FSK demodulators. The received data is fed into VHF Rx0 module, and then divided into two to feed the VHF Rx1 module. The intermediate frequency (IF) signal is filtered, amplified and down converted to 455 kHz in two stages in the FM receiver chip. FM receiver chip also comprises of a limiting amplifier with received signal strength indication (RSSI), and a quadrature detector mixer with built in phase shifting capacitor. The baseband audio is then demodulated in the FSK demodulator circuit and sent to all outputs of the receiver simultaneously. Connections of the VHF receiver to the other system modules are illustrated in Figure 5. VHF is connected to OBCs and power modules via transistor-transistor logic (TTL) lines. The command decoder in the power module can take the relevant data to turn on the necessary modules. VHF module also has another command decoder to send commands directly to the modules through CAN bus.

10

-2

10
BER

-3

10

-4

10

-5

10

-6

10 -115

-7

-110

-105 Carrier Power (dBm)

-100

-95

Figure 6. BER Curves of VHF Receiver

IV.

S-BAND RECEIVER

There are two cold redundant S-Band receiver modules which are used as an alternative way of uplink communication. These modules use 9k6 bps FSK modulation in commercial space band. Two patch antennas are used for each receiver, one on the earth-facing facet and the other on the space-facing facet on the satellite. These two signals are fed into the receiver with a power combiner. Each S-Band receiver consists of three sub-modules: the front-end band pass filter, the S-Band down converter and the IF module. The front-end filter and down converter are fitted into the same nano-tray, while the IF module is placed in its own nano-tray.

OBC 386-1
TTL 9k 6 FSK

OBC 386-2
TTL
CAN0 T&T

VHF Rx 0
CAN1 T&T

CAN

9k6 FSK

Command Decoder

TTL

Power Line

VHF Rx 1

POWER Module

IF module resembles VHF receiver except some minor differences. S-Band signals are converted to VHF receiver frequency via down converter; block diagram and photograph of which are given in Figure 7 and Figure 8 respectively. Down converted signal is then fed to the IF module to be processed. Synthesizers of the receivers are tuned so that they operate at different frequencies.

Figure 5. Connections of VHF Module

TABLE III.
Mixer Patch antennas
To IF module

BENCH TEST RESULTS FOR S-BAND RECEIVERS S-Rx 0 ~1.3 W -57 dBm -42 dBm 103 dB 8.2 dB -114 dBm S-Rx1 ~1.3 W -60 dBm -44 dBm 105 dB 8.5 dB -112 dBm

TEST DC Power (at 28V) P1dB (input) IIP3 (input) Image Signal Rejection Equivalent Noise Figure Minimum Detected Signal

BPF

LNA

BPF
Synthesizer

Figure 7. Block Diagram of S-Band Down Converter

S-Band transmitter and receiver isolation is also tested and it is found that there is no degradation in BER performance up to 18 dBm leakage at transmitter frequency.
10
-1

BER Curves Ambient BER Hot BER Cold BER

10

-2

10

-3

BER

10

-4

Figure 8. Photograph of S-Band Down Converter and Filter

10

-5

The front-end 5-pole Chebyscheff band pass filter has a bandwidth of 80MHz and 60dB/decade roll off. This provides excellent rejection at the S-Band transmitter frequencies. LNA provides 23 dB gain and has less than 1.8 dB noise figure. A custom made surface mount filter, with a pass band insertion loss of 0.7 dB and a 120 MHz bandwidth follows LNA. This filter attenuates transmitter frequency by 18 dB. Then, frequency mixer is used to convert the signal down to VHF frequencies. Connections of S-Band receiver to the other system modules are demonstrated in Figure 9. Receiver is connected to BILGE and Solid State Data Recorder (SSDR) with lowvoltage differential signaling (LVDS) lines and there exists a TTL connection to OBC386.
Antenna

10

-6

10 -110

-7

-108

-106

-104 -102 Carrier Power (dBm)

-100

-98

-96

Figure 10. BER Curves of S-Band Receiver

V.

S-BAND TRANSMITTER

BILGE
Telemetry LVDS

OBC 386
TTL CAN T&T

S-Band transmitter is one of the modules with space heritage on RASAT. Besides being responsible for the downlink of telemetry, S-Band transmitters also constitute the back-up of the X-Band transmitter payload for the downlink of image data. There are two cold redundant S-Band transmitters on RASAT and each transmitter is connected to a separate directional QFH antenna. S-Band transmitter operates at the commercial band around 2233.33 MHz and it is capable of 2 Mbps data rate. BPSK is the default modulation scheme. Hence, differential encoding is used against phase ambiguity. As the pulse shaping filter, RRC filter with a roll-off factor of 0.6 is implemented. S-Band transmitter unit provides at least 33 dBm (2W) RF output power. Each S-Band transmitter module is composed of two nanotrays, one for the baseband unit (Programmable Mode Transmitter, PMT), and the other for the high power amplifier (HPA) together with the power supply unit (PSU). Besides, a mechanical filter is used as the transmitter band-pass filter. The general block diagram of the S-Band transmitter is given in Figure 11. As it can be seen from Figure 11, the 28V power is supplied to the PMT unit through PSU. In PMT unit, the

DownConverter

IF
LVDS Power

CAN
SSDR

Synthesizer lock

POWER Module

Figure 9. S-Band Receiver Connections Diagram

Test results for the S-Band receivers are summarized in Table III and BER curves of receiver are illustrated in Figure 10. Note that in 50C tests, small degradation in the BER performance is observed and this is mainly due to the frequency shift of the Butler oscillator used in the IF module.

transmission frequency is generated by mixing the output of the Butler oscillator at 240 MHz and the output of the PLL circuit at 2473.33 MHz. I and Q components received from the LVDS channels and passed through the anti-aliasing filters are fed to the modulator. Next, some filtering and intermediate amplifying processes are performed before HPA unit. The RF output of the PMT unit is about 23-24 dBm.
SSDR LVDS BILGE or OBC 386 LVDS BILGE ROUTER LVDS

TABLE IV. S-TX 0 DC power (W)

TEST RESULTS FOR S-BAND TRANSMITTER 0 -20C 21.28 34.5 4-5 <1 20C 20.58 33.75 4-5 3.5 50C 20.55 33.5 4-5 7.2

RF output power (dBm) Error Vector Magnitude (%rms) Frequency Deviation f (kHz) TABLE V. S-TX 1 DC power (W) RF output power (dBm)

TEST RESULTS FOR S-BAND TRANSMITTER 1 -20C 21.48 34.75 4-5 <1 20C 20.78 34 4-5 1.5 50C 20.75 33.25 4-5.5 7

CAN

PMT
RF

PSU - PMT

HPA Telemetry

+28V

EVM (%rms) Frequency Deviation f (kHz)

PDM

+28V

HPA + PSU
QFH

RF

Mechanical Filter

VI.
RF

X-BAND TRANSMITTER

Figure 11. Block Diagram of S-Band Transmitter

On the other hand, HPA unit is divided into two subunits, namely the Son of S-Band Communications Amplifier Block (SoSCAB) and Son of Bias Opto-Isolator Driver (SoBOID). The SoSCAB unit amplifies the RF output of the PMT unit to 33-34 dBm. The SoBOID board mainly ensures that the DC voltages supplied to the GaAs FET on SoSCAB are given in the correct order and in the correct levels. The SoBOID circuit also monitors the HPA telemetry and sends the values to PMT unit. Then, the telemetries such as temperatures of the PMT and SoSCAB modules, PLL lock status, forward and reverse RF power values, and current drawn by HPA can be monitored over CAN bus. Three LVDS channels are available for each transmitter. SBand Transmitter 0 is connected to the SSDR, BILGE ROUTER and OBC386 modules, while S-Band Transmitter 1 has the same connections except that it is connected to BILGE instead of OBC386. The operational temperature range of S-Band transmitter is -20C to +50C. In Figure 12, the S-Band transmitter can be seen during thermal-cycling tests. The environmental test results for S-Band Transmitter 0 and 1 are tabulated in Table IV and Table V, respectively.

X-Band transmitter is the communication system payload of RASAT for the downlink of image data, and also it can be used as the back-up system of S-Band transmitter. It operates at a center frequency of 8.23 GHz, which is in the frequency band (8.025 GHz - 8.4 GHz) allocated to the space-to-earth transmission for earth observation satellites. It is a high data rate transmitter with data rates up to 100 Mbps. The output power of the system is 38.5 dBm (7W). The modulation scheme of the transmitter can be selected as QPSK or OQPSK. In addition, the transmitter can operate at three different data rates (25 Mbps, 50 Mbps, and 100 Mbps) which will be chosen according to the needs and facilities of the ground station. Error correction coding (ECC) scheme of the X-Band transmitter is a concatenated encoder structure which is recommended by CCSDS [3]. This encoder structure includes a Reed Solomon (RS) with (255, 223, 32)256 as the outer code, a convolutional code with rate () as the inner code, and an RS interleaver with depth 5 in between. X-Band transmitter is connected to BILGE SSDR via SpaceWire. The general block diagram of the X-Band transmitter is given in Figure 13.
28 V 28 V Power Converter Power Converter

BLGE SSDR Spacewire BLGE SSDR Spacewire Baseband Module IF IF/RF Converter RF RF Power Driver Amplifier Amplifier RF

Telemetry/ Telecommand CAN

2260 MHz BCO

5970 MHz BCO Telemetry

Figure 13. Block Diagram of X-Band Transmitter Figure 12. S-Band Transmitter During Environmental Test

A crossed-dipole antenna is employed for X-Band transmitter. This antenna is shaped in order to maximize the gain at low elevation and minimize it at the nadir (i.e., in order to have almost constant link margin at all elevation angles). The flight model of the antenna and the measured antenna pattern are shown in Figure 14.

TABLE VI. Parameters

X-BAND TRANSMITTER TVT RESULTS -20C 10-7 mbar 25C 10-5 mbar 38.45 5.15 0.4 2.4 4.9 64.85 50C 10-7 mbar 36.4 7 0.4 2.7 6.5 61.6

Nominal Output (dBm) EVM (% rms) Amplitude Error (%) Phase Error () Frequency Variation (kHz) DC Power (Watt)

40.26 6.2 0.4 2.4 1.7 68.6

Figure 14. Crossed-Dipole Antenna and The Radiation Pattern

The operating temperature range of the module is -20C to +50C. The mass of transmitter is almost 4.3 kg. X-Band transmitter is successfully exposed to vibration test and thermal vacuum test (TVT) according to ECSS-E-10-03A standards [4]. For EMC test, MIL-STD-461E is taken as reference [5]. Figure 15 shows the X-Band transmitter in the thermal vacuum chamber before the tests. Tests are performed for the data rate of 100 Mbps and QPSK modulation at -20C, 25C and +50C at vacuum conditions. Finally, Figure 16 shows the downlink performance of the X-Band transmitter for a BER of 10-6 with QPSK modulation and concatenated ECC structure. It can be seen that low elevation angle results in a 2 dB link margin for the worst case nominal output power (i.e., at +50C).

Figure 16. X-Band Downlink Link Margin (Nominal Output = 36,4 dBm, 100 Mbps, QPSK, RS (255, 223, 32)256 + Convolutional code rate () + Interleaver with depth 5)

VII. CONCLUSION In this paper, the modules in the communication subsystem of RASAT - namely UHF transmitters, VHF receivers, S-Band receivers and S-Band transmitters with space heritage from BILSAT-1 are explained in detail. Also, high data rate X-band transmitter, which is the experimental communication payload, is introduced. Related block diagrams, connections of the modules and some of the test results are also given. All the environmental and functional tests are accomplished successfully for all modules of communication subsystem and RASAT, waiting for its wishfully successful launch from Yasny, Russia. REFERENCES

Figure 15. X-Band Transmitter at Themal-Vacuum Chamber

[1] [2]

The overall RF output power, EVM and frequency variation at the end of a 15-minutes-working-run are tabulated in Table VI. During TVT, X-Band transmitter is tested with both a test sequence generated at the baseband module and an external test file sent via SpaceWire. In both cases, the test data are downloaded successfully.

[3] [4] [5]

. Belce, A. Telli, and K.Maynard, BILSAT-1 Communication Subsystem Recent Advances in Space Technologies, 2003. H. K. Sunay et al., High Data Rate X-Band Transmitter For Low Earth Orbit Satellites ABSCO International Symposium, Pattaya, Thailand, 20-24 July 2009. Telemetry Channel Coding, CCSDS 101.0-B-4, May 1999. Space Engineering-Testing, ECSS-E-10-03A, February 2002. Requirements for the Control of Electromagnetic Interference Characteristics of Subsystems and Equipment, MIL-STD-461E, August 1999.