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A brief overview of a processing satellite for a mesh very-small-aperture (VSAT) communications network is provided. The multichannel error correction code (ECC) decoder system, the uplink signal generation and link simulation equipment, and the time-shared decoder are described. The testing is discussed. Applications of the time-shared decoder are recommended.
This paper describes a novel Land Mobile Satellite System (LMSS) concept applicable to networks allowing access to a large number of gateway stations ('Hubs'), utilizing low-cost Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSAT's). Efficient operation of the Forward-Link (FL) repeater can be achieved by adopting a synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technique, whereby inter-code interference (self-noise) is virtually eliminated by synchronizing orthogonal codes. However, with a transparent FL repeater, the requirements imposed by the highly decentralized ground segment can lead to significant efficiency losses. The adoption of a FL On-Board Processing (OBP) repeater is proposed as a means of largely recovering this efficiency impairment. The paper describes the network architecture, the system design and performance, the OBP functions and impact on implementation. The proposed concept, applicable to a future generation of the European LMSS, was developed in the context of a European Space Agency (ESA) study contract.
Early in the 21st century, the demand for personal communications using mobile, hand-held, and VSAT terminals will rapidly increase. In a future system, many different types of services should be provided with one-hop connection. The Communications Research Laboratory (CRL) has studied a future advanced mobile satellite communications system using millimeter wave and Ka band. In 1990, CRL started the Communications and Broadcasting Engineering Test Satellite (COMETS) project. The satellite has been developed in conjunction with NASDA and will be launched in 1997. This paper describes the COMETS payload configuration and the experimental system for the advanced mobile communications mission.
One of the critical satellite technologies in a meshed VSAT (very small aperture terminal) satellite communication networks utilizing FDMA (frequency division multiple access) uplinks is a multichannel demultiplexer/demodulator (MCDD). TRW Electronic Systems Group developed a proof-of-concept (POC) MCDD using advanced digital technologies. This POC model demonstrates the capability of demultiplexing and demodulating multiple low to medium data rate FDMA uplinks with potential for expansion to demultiplexing and demodulating hundreds to thousands of narrowband uplinks. The TRW approach uses baseband sampling followed by successive wideband and narrowband channelizers with each channelizer feeding into a multirate, time-shared demodulator. A full-scale MCDD would consist of an 8 bit A/D sampling at 92.16 MHz, four wideband channelizers capable of demultiplexing eight wideband channels, thirty-two narrowband channelizers capable of demultiplexing one wideband signal into 32 narrowband channels, and thirty-two multirate demodulators. The POC model consists of an 8 bit A/D sampling at 23.04 MHz, one wideband channelizer, 16 narrowband channelizers, and three multirate demodulators. The implementation loss of the wideband and narrowband channels is 0.3dB and 0.75dB at 10(exp -7) E(sub b)/N(sub o) respectively.
The ESA communication network for decentralized remote telescience during the Spacelab mission IML-2, called Interconnection Ground Subnetwork (IGS), provided data, voice conferencing, video distribution/conferencing and high rate data services to 5 remote user centers in Europe. The combination of services allowed the experimenters to interact with their experiments as they would normally do from the Payload Operations Control Center (POCC) at MSFC. In addition, to enhance their science results, they were able to make use of reference facilities and computing resources in their home laboratory, which typically are not available in the POCC. Characteristics of the IML-2 communications implementation were the adaptation to the different user needs based on modular service capabilities of IGS and the cost optimization for the connectivity. This was achieved by using a combination of traditional leased lines, satellite based VSAT connectivity and N-ISDN according to the simulation and mission schedule for each remote site. The central management system of IGS allows minimization of staffing and the involvement of communications personnel at the remote sites. The successful operation of IGS for IML-2 as a precursor network for the Columbus Orbital Facility (COF) has proven the concept for communications to support the operation of the COF decentralized scenario.
The NASA Lewis Research Center has been developing the architecture for a multichannel communications signal processing satellite (MCSPS) as part of a flexible, low-cost meshed-VSAT (very small aperture terminal) network. The MCSPS architecture is based on a multifrequency, time-division-multiple-access (MF-TDMA) uplink and a time-division multiplex (TDM) downlink. There are eight uplink MF-TDMA beams, and eight downlink TDM beams, with eight downlink dwells per beam. The information-switching processor, which decodes, stores, and transmits each packet of user data to the appropriate downlink dwell onboard the satellite, has been fully described by using VHSIC (Very High Speed Integrated-Circuit) Hardware Description Language (VHDL). This VHDL code, which was developed in-house to simulate the information switching processor, showed that the architecture is both feasible and viable. This paper describes a shared-memory-per-beam architecture, its VHDL implementation, and the simulation efforts.
The purpose of this paper is to describe an implementation of audio conferencing using the ACTS T1-VSAT network. In particular, this implementation evaluates the use of the on-board switching capability of the satellite as a viable alternative for providing the multipoint connectivity normally provided by terrestrial audio bridge equipment The system that was implemented provides full mesh, full-duplex audio conferencing, with end-to-end voice paths between all participants requiring only a single hop (i.e. 250 msec. delay). Moreover, it addresses the lack of spontaneity in current systems by allowing a user to easily start a conference from any standard telephone handset connected to an ACTS earth station, and quickly add new members to the conference at any time using the 'hook flash' capability. No prior scheduling of resources is required and there is no central point of control, thereby providing the user with the spontaneity desired in audio conference control.
This paper describes the implementation of the operational baseband processor (BBP) subsystem on board the NASA Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS). The BBP supports the network consisting of the NASA ground station (NGS) low burst rate (LBR) terminals, and the T1 very small aperture terminals (VSAT's), to provide flexible, demand assigned satellite switched (SS), baseband processed frequency division modulated (FDM)/time division multiple access (TDMA) operations. This paper presents an overview of the baseband processor and includes a description of the data flow, functional block diagrams, and a discussion of the implementation of BBP. A discussion of the supporting technologies for the BBP is presented. A brief summary of BBP-level performance testing is also presented. Finally, a discussion of the implications of current technology on the BBP design, if it were to be developed today, is presented.
This report provides the test results and performance analysis of the multichannel error correction code decoder (MED) system for a regenerative satellite with asynchronous, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) uplink channels. It discusses the system performance relative to various critical parameters: the coding length, data pattern, unique word value, unique word threshold, and adjacent-channel interference. Testing was performed under laboratory conditions and used a computer control interface with specifically developed control software to vary these parameters. Needed technologies - the high-speed Bose Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codec from Harris Corporation and the TRW multichannel demultiplexer/demodulator (MCDD) - were fully integrated into the mesh very small aperture terminal (VSAT) onboard processing architecture and were demonstrated.
Rapid growth in new satellite services incorporating very small aperture terminals (VSAT) and ultra small aperture terminals (USAT) is expected in the coming years. Small size terminals allow for widespread use of satellite services in small business and domestic applications. Due to congestion of lower frequency bands such as C and Ku, most of these services will use Ka-band (2/20 GHz) frequencies. Propagation impairments produced by the troposphere is a limiting factor for the effective use of the 20/30 GHz band and the use of smaller Earth terminals makes it difficult to provide sufficient link margins for propagation related outages. In this context, reliable prediction of propagation impairments for low margin systems becomes important. Due to the complexity of propagation phenomena propagation modeling is mainly attempted on an empirical basis. As such, the availability of reliable measured data that extend to probability levels well in excess of the traditional limit of 1 percent is of great importance in the development, validation, and refinement of propagation models. The beacon payload on the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) together with the propagation measurement terminals developed under the NASA ACTS propagation program provide an excellent opportunity to collect such data on a long-term basis. This paper presents the results of ACTS propagation measurements conducted in the Washington, DC metropolitan area by COMSAT Laboratories.
Future satellite communications systems operating in Ka-band frequency band are subject to degradation produced by the troposphere which is much more severe than those found at lower frequency bands. These impairments include signal absorption by rain, clouds and gases, and amplitude scintillation's arising from refractive index irregularities. For example, rain attenuation at 20 GHz is almost three times that at 11 GHz. Although some of these impairments can be overcome by oversizing the ground station antennas and high power amplifiers, the current trend is using small (less than 20 inches apertures), low-cost ground stations (less than $1000) that can be easily deployed at user premises. As a consequence, most Ka-band systems are expected to employ different forms of fade mitigation that can be implemented relatively easily and at modest cost. The rain fade mitigation approaches are defined by three types of Ka-band communications systems - a low service rate (less than 1.5 Mb/s), a moderate service rate (1.5 to 6 Mb/s) system and a high service rate (greater than 43 Mb/s) system. The ACTS VSAT network, which includes an adaptive rain fade technique, is an example of a moderate service rate.
The Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS) communications system operates in the Ka frequency band. ACTS uses multiple, hopping, narrow beams and very small aperture terminal (VSAT) technology to establish a system availability of 99.5% for bit-error-rates of 5 x 10(exp -7) Or better over the continental United States. In order maintain this minimum system availability in all US rain zones, ACTS uses an adaptive rain fade compensation protocol to reduce the impact of signal attenuation resulting from propagation effects. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of system and sub-system characterizations considering the statistical effects of system variances due to antenna wetting and depolarization effects. In addition the availability enhancements using short distance diversity in a sub-tropical rain zone are investigated.
The frequency bands being used for new satellite communication systems are constantly increasing to accommodate the requirements for additional capacity. At these higher frequencies, propagation impairments that did not significantly affect the signal at lower frequencies begin to have considerable impact. In Ka-band, the next logical commercial frequency band to be used for satellite communication, attenuation of the signal due to rain is a primary concern. An experimental satellite built by NASA, the Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS), launched in September 1993, is the first US communication satellite operating in the Ka-band. In addition to higher carrier frequencies, a number of other new technologies, including onboard baseband processing, multiple beam antennas, and rain fade detection and compensation techniques, were designed into the ACTS. Verification experiments have been conducted since the launch to characterize the new technologies. The focus of this thesis is to describe and validate the method used by the ACTS Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) ground stations in detecting the presence of fade in the communication signal and to adaptively compensate for it by the addition of burst rate reduction and forward error correction. Measured data obtained from the ACTS program is used to validate the compensation technique. In this thesis, models in MATLAB are developed to statistically characterize the increased availability achieved by the compensation techniques in terms of the bit error rate time enhancement factor. Several improvements to the ACTS technique are discussed and possible implementations for future Ka-band systems are also presented.
NASA Lewis Research Center's Digital Systems Technology Branch has an ongoing program in modulation, coding, onboard processing, and switching. Recently, NASA completed a project to incorporate a time-shared decoder into the very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) onboard-processing mesh architecture. The primary goal was to demonstrate a time-shared decoder for a regenerative satellite that uses asynchronous, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) uplink channels, thereby identifying hardware and power requirements and fault-tolerant issues that would have to be addressed in a operational system. A secondary goal was to integrate and test, in a system environment, two NASA-sponsored, proof-of-concept hardware deliverables: the Harris Corp. high-speed Bose Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codec and the TRW multichannel demultiplexer/demodulator (MCDD). A beneficial byproduct of this project was the development of flexible, multichannel-uplink signal-generation equipment.
The Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) was designed to achieve a 99.5-percent system availability rate and signals with less than one error in 10(exp 7) bits throughout the continental United States. To accomplish such a high rate of system availability, ACTS uses multiple narrow hopping beams and very small aperture terminal (VSAT) technology. In addition, ACTS uses an adaptive rain fade compensation protocol to reduce the negative effects of propagation on the system. To enhance knowledge on how propagation and system variances affect system availability, researchers at the NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field performed technology verification experiments over a 7-yr period (from September 1993 to the present). These experiments include T1VSAT System Availability, Statistical Rain Fade Compensation Characterization, Statistical Characterization of Ka-Band Propagation Effects on Communication Link Performance, and Multibeam Antenna Performance.
This paper describes a program of experiments conducted over the advanced communications technology satellite (ACTS) and the associated TI-VSAT (very small aperture terminal). The experiments were motivated by the commercial potential of low-cost receive only satellite terminals that can operate in a hybrid network environment, and by the desire to demonstrate frame relay technology over satellite networks. The first experiment tested highly adaptive methods of satellite bandwidth allocation in an integrated voice-data service environment. The second involved comparison of forward error correction (FEC) and automatic repeat request (ARQ) methods of error control for satellite communication with emphasis on the advantage that a hybrid architecture provides, especially in the case of multicasts. Finally, the third experiment demonstrated hybrid access to databases and compared the performance of internetworking protocols for interconnecting local area networks (LANs) via satellite. A custom unit termed frame relay access switch (FRACS) was developed by COMSAT Laboratories for these experiments; the preparation and conduct of these experiments involved a total of 20 people from the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado and COMSAT Laboratories, from late 1992 until 1995.
NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) is developing and constructing a Government Reference Design (GRD) version of the Vertical Solar Array Technology (VSAT) Demonstrator for lunar surface applications. This paper provides an overview of the conceptual design effort and discusses the planned demonstrations of its associated mechanisms.
Due to long shadow periods (2 weeks or greater) on the south pole, concepts to raise solar arrays to a sufficient height at specific locations have shown the capability to provide power to surface users for much longer periods. Such a tower can also provide a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) service for users up to 10 km away, dependent on terrain. An option to deliver power, albeit with low efficiency, using a laser beam coupled with the tower height could provide mobile and fixed users power during darkness, reducing their battery requirements. A demonstration of these technologies in the lunar environment is crucial to support future Artemis campaigns as well as potential emerging lunar infrastructures. A demonstrator design of a 15 m deployed boomon the south pole has been shown to enable both the gathering of kilowatts of power and the provision of 3GPP relay and backhaul given an appropriate lunar location. Using a laser to send power to a photovoltaic receiver has been proposed to transmit electrical power on the moon, particularly for applications such as powering a rover in near-polar permanently shadowed regions (PSR) where solar power is not available. In this work, the Compass team performed a conceptual engineering design study of a near-term laser surface-to-surface power beaming and relay station using a tower to simultaneously carry the power source (Vertical Solar Array Technologies (VSAT)[1]), the 3GPP relay antenna, and the laser telescope.