ECEG30 (Wireless Communications)

BRIEF HISTORY OF SATELLITE COMMUNICATION

In 1962, the world's first active communications satellite, Telstar 1, was launched. This satellite was built by Telesat's predecessors at AT&T and Bell Laboratories. During its seven months in operation, Telstar 1 dazzled the world with live images of sports, entertainment and news. It was a simple single-transponder low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite, but its technology of receiving radio signals from the ground, and then amplifying and retransmitting them over a large portion of the earth's surface, set the standard for all communications satellites that followed. During the 1960s and 1970s, advances in satellite performance came quickly and a global industry began to develop. Satellites were mainly used at first for international and long-haul telephone traffic and distribution of select television programming, both internationally and domestically. In 1973 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation began distributing its video programming to Canadian customers using Telesats Anik A satellite. Then in 1975 HBO began distributing its video programming to US customers by satellite. The commercial and technical success of these ventures led to a greater use and acceptance of satellite broadcasting. By the 1990s, satellite communications would be the primary means of distributing TV programs around the world.

WHAT IS A SATELLITE?
A Satellite is a solid object which revolves around some heavenly body due to the effect of gravitational forces which are mutual in nature.

COMMUNICATION SATELLITE
A communication satellite is an artificial satellite that acts as a radio relay station in orbit above the earth that receives, amplifies, and redirects analog and digital signals carried on a specific radio frequency. It acts as a repeater in long distance communication path.

TYPES OF SATELLITE
Natural Satellite E.g. moon Artificial Satellite

Active Satellite -It is a functioning satellite that receives and transmits or retransmits radiocommunication signals to or from a base station. They have more complicated structures having processing equipment called Transponder which is very vital for functioning of the satellite. These transponders serve dual purpose i.e. provides amplification of the incoming and performs the frequency translation of the incoming signal to avoid interference between the incoming and outgoing signals.

Passive Satellite - are relay stations in space. It simply reflects light or radio waves transmitted from one ground terminal to another without amplification or retransmission.

WHAT IS SATTELITE COMMUNICATION?

Satellite communication is simply the communication of the satellite in space with large number of earth stations on the ground. A Communication Satellite can be looked upon as a large microwave repeater. Users are connected to the earth station via some telephone switch or some dedicated link. They generate baseband signals, which is processed at the earth station and then transmitted to the satellite through dish antennas. The satellite receives the uplink frequency and the transponder present inside the satellite does the processing function and frequency down conversion and then transmits the downlink signal at different frequency. The earth station then receives the signal from the satellite through parabolic dish antenna and processes it to get back the baseband signal. This baseband signal is then transmitted to the respective user via dedicated link or other terrestrial system.

WHY SATELLITE COMMUNICATION?

Long distance communication beyond 10 20 MHz in three modes failed:Ground wave due to conduction losses Space wave due to limited line of sight Sky wave due to penetration of the ionosphere by the higher frequencies beyond critical frequency. And thus, there came the need of satellite communication. We have seen that the waves of freq. > 30MHz cannot propagate by conventional modes due to penetration of frequencies beyond 30MHz through ionosphere.

A single satellite can provide coverage to over 30% of Earths surface and thus was adopted for long distance communication. Communication links could be setup throughout the entire world using satellites. This cant be done with other modes of communication due to some severe limitations. It is often the only solution for some isolated areas. And a new concept of communication, the communication through a Satellite revolutionized communication technology.

FREQUENCY BANDS USED IN SATELLITE COMMUNICATION

Frequency Band L-Band S-band C-Band X-Band Ku-Band Ka-Band Range 1 to 1.5 GHz 1 to 1.3 GHz 3 to 8 GHz 8 to 12 GHz 10 to 18 GHz 18 to 22 GHz

SATELLITE UPLINK AND DOWNLINK FREQUENCIES IN DIFFERENT BAND

Frequency Band C-band X-Band Ku-Band Ka-Band UPLINK 6.00 GHz 8.00 GHz 14.00 GHz 30.00 GHz DOWNLINK 4.00 GHz 7.00 GHz 11.00 GHz 20.00 GHz

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF DIFFERENT BAND

C-Band Adv. : Broad Footprint, little rain fade Disadv. : Weak signals, interference, large antenna sizes and amplifiers

Ku-Band

Adv. : Focused Foot prints, no terrestrial interference small antenna and amplifier Disadv. : Interference to rain. Ka-Band Adv. : Focused Foot prints, large unused bandwidths Disadv. : Interference to rain.

COMPONENTS OF A SATELLITE SYSTEM

Space Segment - is consist of the satellite itself. A satellite has various transmitting

and receiving antenna, transponders and other control systems like temperature control, power supply control, orbit and altitude control, tracking, telemetry and command equipment etc. 1. The Satellite 2. Tracking, Telemetry and Telecommand

The Ground Segment - is basically consist of an earth station. An earth station

provides a complete uplink and downlink chain for the signal. It transmits and receives the signal to and from the satellite. It is also consist of an antenna. Since the user baseband signal cannot be transmitted directly, it is also consist of amplifiers, modulators and demodulators, frequency up- and down- converters. 1. Earth Stations

TYPES OF SATELLITE ORBIT ON THE BASIS OF ALTITUDE

An orbit is the path that a satellite follows as it revolves around Earth. In terms of commercial satellites, there are three main categories of orbits: 1. LEO (Low Earth Orbit) 500-2,000 km above the earth These orbits are much closer to the Earth, requiring satellites to travel at a very high speed in order to avoid being pulled out of orbit by Earth's gravity At LEO, a satellite can circle the Earth in approximately one and a half hours

2. MEO (Medium Earth Orbit) 8,000-20,000 km above the earth These orbits are primarily reserved for communications satellites that cover the North and South Pole MEO's are placed in an elliptical (oval-shaped) orbit

3. GEO (Geosynchronous Orbit) 35,786 km above the earth Orbiting at the height of 22,282 miles above the equator (35,786 km), the satellite travels in the same direction and at the same speed as the Earth's rotation on its axis, taking 24 hours to complete a full trip around the globe. Thus, as long as a satellite is positioned over the equator in an assigned orbital location, it will appear to be "stationary" with respect to a specific location on the Earth. A single geostationary satellite can view approximately one third of the Earth's surface.

If three satellites are placed at the proper longitude, the height of this orbit allows almost the Earths entire surface to be covered by the satellites.

TYPES OF SATELLITE ORBIT ON THE BASIS OF ECCENTRICITY

1. Circular orbit: An orbit that has an eccentricity of 0 and whose path traces a circle.

2. Elliptic orbit: An orbit with an eccentricity greater than 0 and less than 1 whose orbit traces the path of an ellipse. 3. Hyperbolic orbit: An orbit with the eccentricity greater than 1. Such an orbit also has a velocity in excess of the escape velocity and as such, will escape the gravitational pull of the planet and continue to travel infinitely. 4. Parabolic orbit: An orbit with the eccentricity equal to 1. Such an orbit also has a velocity equal to the escape velocity and therefore will escape the gravitational pull of the planet and travel until its velocity relative to the planet is 0. If the speed of such an orbit is increased it will become a hyperbolic orbit.

TYPES OF SATELLITE ORBIT ON THE BASIS OF INCLINATION

1. Equatorial orbit: An orbit whose inclination in reference to the equatorial plane is zero degrees. 2. Polar orbit: An orbit that passes above or nearly above both poles of the planet on each revolution. Therefore it has an inclination of (or very close to) 90 degrees 3. Inclined orbit: An orbit whose inclination in reference to the equatorial plane is not zero degrees.

TYPES OF SATELLITE
1. Geo-Synchronous Satellite Orbit on the equatorial plane - appears stationary Altitude of 36000 Kms. Circular orbit around earth with period of 24 hours. Coverage of about 1/3 of Earth. 2 deg. apart. Identified by Longitudinal position with ref. to Greenwich.

Advantage of Geostationary Satellite Simple ground station tracking requirements. Removes Satellite hand-over problems. Negligible Doppler shift

2. Polar Orbiting Satellite These satellites orbit the earth in such a way as to cover the north and south polar regions. These satellites if in a low earth orbit have to travel at a very high speed. These satellites can be kept in low earth orbit (800 -900 km) or at 36000km apart.

3. Inclined Orbit Satellite A disadvantage of Geostationary satellites is that points on Earth beyond about 80 deg latitude are not visible. Inclined orbits, on the other hand can provide visibility to the higher northern and southern latitudes, although they require earth stations to continually track the satellite

LIFE AND COST OF SATELLITE

GEO MEO LEO Lease Own 15 yrs 10 yrs 5 yrs 1 yr 5-15 yrs $2B $2-3B $1.5-3B

ADVANTAGES OF SATELLITE COMMUNICATION

1. Can reach over large geographical area. A single satellite can provide coverage to over 30% of Earths surface. With just 3 geosynchronous satellite we can cover the entire earth. 2. Point to Multi point communication is possible. 3. Only solution for developing and isolated areas. 4. Ideal for broadcast applications. 5. No need for the local loop. 6. Wide bandwidths (155 Mbps) are available now. 7. Transmission of distances. cost and quality of signal is independent

8. During critical condition earth stations can be removed and relocated easily.

DISADVANTAGES OF SATELLITE COMMUNICATION

1. Delay of 270+270 msec makes one feel annoying. 2. Delay reduces the of satellite in data transmission during long file transfer. 3. Communication path between TX and RX is approximately 75000 km. 4. High atmospheric losses above 30 GHz limit carrier frequencies. 5. Large up front capital costs (space segment and launch) 6. Terrestrial break even distance expanding (now approx. size of Europe) 7. Congestion of frequencies and orbits