Module 5

Amity School of Engg &
Technology
M.Tech ECE, Semester II
Satellite Communication
Module 5 Lecture 1
Dr Sanmukh Kaur
1
Learning Objectives & Outcomes
 To identify the implementation of VSAT network architectures
 Identify the type, requirements and comparison of network architectures and

requirements of access control protocols.
2
Module V: VSAT System
Introduction
 The acronym VSAT stands for very small aperture terminal.
 The first earth station antennas used in commercial satellite communications

systems were very large and expensive, with typical aperture diameters of 30 m.
 These large antennas operated in C-band (6/4 GHz).
 With the rapid expansion of satellite telecommunications worldwide, there was a

need to make access to the satellite more affordable.
 This came about in two ways: a significant increase in the transmit power
capabilities of satellites and the move to frequency bands above C-band.
 Both led to a rapid decrease in the size and cost of earth station antennas.
3
Introduction
 Most VSAT systems operate in Ku-band, with earth station antenna diameters of one
to two meters and uplink transmitter powers of one or two watts.
 To be able to cope with tracking the fast moving satellites, the small earth stations
proposed for these NGSO systems will probably need to use phased array antennas,
unlike earth stations operating to GEO spacecraft that do not need to constantly
track the satellites.
4
Network architectures
 There are three basic implementations of any telecommunication service:
- One way
- Two way
- Split-two-way
 Two way implementation in Most VSAT systems operating with GEO satellites are
usually organized into two different architectures: Star and Mesh
 One way implementation mode is used in the broadcast satellite service.
 The introduction of digital technology allows the provider and user much greater
flexibility in the operation of a broadcast network.
 By means of proprietary software in the user terminals different parts of the

downlink can be accessed by different subscribers according to the programs
ordered from the supplier and paid for by the user.
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 Split - two – way (Split IP) implementation is used when there is no normal return
channel as for example with Ku band broadcast satellite service (BSS) systems that
carry internet traffic.
 The relatively high capacity downlink stream is not complemented by an uplink

capability from the user terminal.
 The internet protocol IP is therefore split between a satellite downlink (outbound)

channel and a terrestrial telephone (inbound or return) channel.
 The advantage of this approach is that the VSAT terminal does not require transmit
capability.
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 This significantly reduces its cost and complexity.
 The disadvantage is that the telephone line connection must usually be through a
modem, with a bit rate generally restricted to 56 Kbps or less.
 Two – way implementation:
 In this case, two – way communication can be set up over the same satellite, from
the hub to the user and from the user back to the hub.
 VSAT systems operating with GEO satellites are usually organized into two
different architectures: a star network, in which the VSATs connect to each other
through a central hub station (the gateway earth station) via a GEO satellite, or a
mesh network, where each of the VSATs operates directly through the GEO
satellites to every other VSAT.
7
 Initially the most common VSAT architectures were Star networks since the very
low receive G / T (Gain to noise temperature ratios) of the VSATs coupled with their
limited transmit EIRP, was compensated for by using a large hub with high G / T
and EIRP.
 The cost of the hub was high and thus prohibitive for smaller VSAT networks.
 This led to the shared hub. The difficulty with this approach for large countries with
widely dispersed communities is that the host computers for the small VSAT
networks are rarely close to the hub.
 A high speed terrestrial data link is required between the host computers of the
networks and the hub.
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 This may increase the cost of the network.
 Whether the hub is shared or dedicated, there will need to be an access control
protocol.
 Data rates on the links are from a few thousand bits per second up to 256 kbps,
depending on the traffic requirements.
 Fig.1 illustrates the differences between a star network and a mesh network.
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Fig.1 VSAT star and mesh network

10
Star network Mesh network
 VSATs connect to each other through a  VSATs operates directly through the
central hub station (the gateway earth GEO satellites to every other VSAT
station) via a GEO satellite or
 In a mesh network, the network control
 In a star network, the gateway station can be allocated to one VSAT, or the
acts as the network controller. control functions can be distributed
amongst the VSATs.
 All links go through the gateway earth
station.  Individual VSAT stations can connect
directly to each other.
 Individual VSAT stations cannot
connect directly to each other. This adds  Larger terminals are needed than with a
substantial delay to the link. star network to compensate for the lack
of a large gateway earth station.
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Access Control Protocols
 A satellite communications link occupies primarily the physical layer of the OSI /
ISO model, in which bits are carried between the terminals.
 A schematic of the OSI/ISO layers is depicted in Fig.2.
 A VSAT network must have terminal controllers at each end of the link and these
occupy the network and link layers, the two layers above the physical layer.
 The network control center typically controls the system and is responsible for the
remaining layers.
 Few communications systems conform in an easily identifiable way to the seven

layers of the ISO-OSI model.
12
Fig.2. Schematic of the OSI / ISO protocol stacks

13
 It is, however, very useful as a conceptual model, which identifies functions that
must be performed somewhere in every data communication network.
 Most data communication networks use some form of packet transmission, in which
blocks of data are tagged with an address, error control parity bits, and other useful
information before transmission.
 The receiving end of a link checks arriving packets for errors, and then sends an
acknowledgment signal (ACK) that the packet was received correctly, or a not
acknowledge signal (NAK) that tells the transmit end to resend a particular packet
because the packet had an error.
 Some systems do not send acknowledgments, only NAK signals to request a

retransmission of a packet with an error, since this speeds up data transmission.
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 This is the error control method used in the internet protocol TCP/IP. Generically,
such systems are known as automatic repeat request (ARQ).
 The ISO-OSI stack was initially developed for terrestrial communications systems.
 The protocols that implement the functions of each layer were designed for use in
terrestrial circuits with low-delay and low bit error rate (BER) [very high
performance levels].
 These are key points when trying to use such protocols over satellites, particularly
those in GEO.
 Many of the early protocols had a connection time-out of a few milliseconds.
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 If no reply was received from the recipient in this interval, transmissions ceased.
 Similarly, an errored signal received from the source or an intervening node would
trigger an automatic error recovery sequence.
 For example, the X.25 and X.75 packet systems use an ARQ approach, which, on
detecting an error in a packet, immediately requests a retransmission and halts
further transmissions until the corrected packet is received.
 Frame relay and ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) systems flag the error but
continue the flow of information (continuous transmission ARQ).
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 The more errors that occur in the link, necessitating many retransmissions of
packets, the slower the effective data throughput rate of the link becomes.
 The potential for delay and (propagation induced) errors are therefore critical design
elements in any digital network, particularly VSAT connections over GEO links
with the potential for long delays between end users.
17
Technology
Module 5 Lecture 2
Dr Sanmukh Kaur
18
 To understand different multiple access technologies used for satellite communication

systems.
 Ability to analyze the suitability and application of different multiple access

techniques.
19
Delay Consideration
 A typical slant range to a GEO satellite is 39 000 km. The one-way delay of t
seconds over such a GEO link is:
 The one-way delay in a typical 4000 km transcontinental link via fiber optic cable is
a little over 13 ms.
 In both cases it does not include processing delay (e.g., source coding and/or
compression, channel coding, baseband processing in the switching elements, frame
length), which can add several tens of milliseconds or even over a 100 ms.
 To maintain continuous, uninterrupted communications, it is essential for the link

timing to remain within the protocol window.
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Multiple access selection
 There are three fundamental multiple access schemes: FDMA, TDMA, and CDMA.
 Within TDMA, there are two broad sub-divisions of access: those that are closely
controlled in time and access ability and those (like ALOHA and other Ethernet-like
connections) that are loosely controlled in time and access ability.
 Multiple access schemes that do not closely control time, frequency, and/or code are
significantly less efficient than those that do.
 Pure ALOHA, which is a random access scheme, has a maximum throughput of

18.4%.
 By combining some aspects of TDMA with the random access of ALOHA, slot
reservation ALOHA can have an efficiency exceeding 60%.
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 The intended application and the potential interference environment often determine
the choice between FDMA, TDMA, and CDMA for VSAT networks, with
economics also playing a major part.
 FDMA generally offers the lowest costs for entry-level VSAT systems from the
user’s perspective since the receiver bandwidth and terminal transmit power
required are the lowest.
 The occupied bandwidth, B, of a radio frequency (RF) channel carrying a digital

signal with a symbol rate Rs and using error control coding with a code rate Rc is
given by
(1)
22
 Where α is the roll off factor of the square root raised cosine (SRRC) filters in the
link.
 For example, in a link using QPSK modulation where two bits of information are
carried by each transmitted symbol, a message information rate of 64 kbit per
second results in a transmission symbol rate of Rs = 32 ksps.
 If the message data bits are encoded with one half rate forward error correcting
(FEC), code rate Rc = ½, and the occupied bandwidth, Bocc, required for a 64 kbit
per second signal is
(2)
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 Typical values of α for satellite links lie between 0.25 and 0.35, with the higher
value being easier, and thus cheaper, to realize when conventional analog filters are
used in the transmitter and receiver.
 If an α = 0.35 SRRC filter is used, the occupied RF bandwidth of a 64 kbps QPSK

signal with half rate FEC is
FDMA
 The RF transmission to the satellite from the VSAT will have a frequency that falls
within the bandwidth of a specific transponder on the satellite.
 If the transponder operates in a bent pipe mode, with no onboard processing, the
satellite will retransmit the multiple VSAT channels on the downlink with exactly the
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same channelization as on the uplink.
FDMA
 Thus a transponder with 36MHz bandwidth transmits 375 channels to the network
controller or other VSATs in the network [Fig.1].
 If the VSAT network is being operated in a MESH mode, each VSAT must have a
frequency synthesizer that allows it to select any of the 375 possible downlink
channels, and the network must have a control channel that tells each terminal at
which frequencies it should receive and transmit.
 It is more usual, however, for an FDMA VSAT system to operate in a Star mode.
 The network controlling earth station is therefore designed to receive all 375
downlink channels.
 The digital signal in each channel is recovered and the address information read off
so that the network controller can forward the information to the intended user.
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FDMA
Fig.1 64 kbps equivalent voice channel accessing a satellite using FDMA

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FDMA
 If the required end-user is external to the VSAT network (i.e., in the terrestrial
network) the information is passed through the hub interface equipment and on to
the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
 The return link from the control station to the satellite, and from thence to the
individual VSAT terminals, is not normally sent as narrowband FDMA channels.
 In most cases, the return channel from the hub to the VSAT terminals, called the
outbound or out route channel, is a single, wide-band stream in a time division
multiplexing (TDM) format.
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FDMA
 Digital signals from various sources are assembled into a single, high-speed data
stream at one point, such as the controller of a VSAT network, and then transmitted
as a single continuous stream.
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FDMA
 In the FDMA Star VSAT network examples the VSAT network is quite large.
 Separate transponders are used for the inbound and the outbound channels.
 In many VSAT networks, the total instantaneous capacity required does not justify
two separate transponders for the inbound and outbound signals.
 Such a case, using a shared transponder, is illustrated in Fig.2.
Fig.2 VSAT network frequency assignment in which the in bound and out bound
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channels share the same satellite transponder
FDMA
 The non-linearity of the transponder at output levels close to saturation causes the
generation of third order intermodulation products that degrade the CNR ratio in the
SCPC channels.
 Amplifier output back off values of between 3 and 7 dB can be found in the VSAT
literature.
 Back off at the transponder output lowers the channel EIRP, and therefore degrades
the downlink CNR.
 The problem of optimizing transponder back off becomes particularly difficult when
the bandwidth is split between the inbound and outbound directions.
 Linearization of the transponder can be employed to decrease the back off required.
30
Technology
Module 5 Lecture 3
Dr Sanmukh Kaur
31
 To understand different multiple access technologies used for satellite communication

systems.
 Ability to analyze the suitability and application of different multiple access

techniques.
32
TDMA
 In TDMA a number of earth stations take turns transmitting bursts of RF signals
through a transponder.
 The bit rate of a burst is determined by the bandwidth of the RF signals and the
modulation.
 The RF bandwidth can be equal to the full transponder bandwidth that typically will
create a high bit rate, or in a MF-TDMA system can be a fraction of the transponder
bandwidth with a lower bit rate.
 TDMA has all the advantages over FDMA that digital signals have over analog.
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TDMA
TDMA over FDMA
 TDMA systems, because the signals are digital

- Can be divided by time
- are easily reconfigured for changing traffic demands
- are resistant to noise and interference
- can readily handle mixed video, data, and voice traffic.
 One major advantage of TDMA when using the entire bandwidth of a transponder is
that only one signal is present in the transponder at one time, thus overcoming some
of the problems caused by non-linear transponders operating with FDMA.
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MF - TDMA
 TDMA systems, however, using all of the transponder bandwidth require every earth
station to transmit at a high bit rate, which requires high transmitter power, making
the basic form of TDMA not well suited to narrowband signals from small earth
stations.
 TDMA can be used to assemble multiple bit streams into a single higher speed
digital signal that has an RF bandwidth much less than the transponder bandwidth.
 Several such MF-TDMA signals can then share a transponder using FDMA. MF-
TDMA is well suited to internet access systems using GEO and LEO satellites, and
systems with satellite telephones and mobile video links.
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TDM vs TDMA
 The difference between TDM and TDMA is that TDM is a baseband technique used
at one location (e.g., a transmitting earth station) to multiplex several digital bit
streams into a single higher speed digital signal.
 Groups of bits are taken from each of the bit streams and formed into baseband
packets or frames that also contain synchronization and identification bits.
 At a receiving earth station, the high speed bit stream must first be recovered using
the techniques including demodulation of the RF carrier, generation of a bit clock,
sampling of the received waveform and recovery of the bits.
 The synchronization bits or words in the packets or frames must then be found so
that the high speed bit stream can be split into its original lower speed signals.
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TDMA
 The entire process requires considerable storage of bits so that the original signals
can be rebuilt, leading to delays in transmission.
 In a GEO satellite system, the largest delay is always the transmission time to the
satellite and back to earth, typically 240 ms.
 The transmission delay is unavoidable, but any additional delays should be

minimized.
 LEO systems have much lower delay because of the shorter path length between the
satellite and earth stations.
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TDMA for Fixed Networks of Earth Stations
Fig. 1 Concept of TDMA.

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 The principle of TDMA is illustrated in Fig. 1.
 The burst transmission is assembled at a transmitting earth station so that it will

correctly fit into the TDMA frame at the satellite.
 The burst from the earth station must be transmitted at the correct time to arrive at
the satellite in the correct position within the TDMA frame.
 This requires synchronization of all the earth stations in a TDMA network, adding
considerable complexity to the equipment at the transmitting station compared to
FDMA.
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 In high speed TDMA systems, operating at 120Mbps for example, these are
demanding requirements. MF-TDMA with its lower bit rates is an attractive
alternative.
Demand assignment multiple access (DAMA)
• Demand assignment can be used in any satellite communication link where traffic
from an earth station is intermittent.
• An example is a LEO satellite system providing links to mobile telephones.
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Demand assignment multiple access (DAMA)
• Telephone voice users typically communicate at random times, with call duration
ranging from less than one minute to several minutes.
• As a percentage of total time, the use of an individual telephone is likely to be less

than 1%.
• If each user were allocated a fixed channel, the utilization of the entire system might
be as low as 1%, especially at night when demand for telephone channels is small.
• Demand assignment allows a satellite channel to be allocated to a user on demand,

rather than continuously, which greatly increases the number of simultaneous users
who can be served by the system.
41
CDMA
• CDMA is a system in which a number of users can occupy all of the transponder
bandwidth all of the time.
• CDMA signals are encoded such that information from an individual transmitter can
be recovered by a receiving station that knows the code being used, in the presence
of all the other CDMA signals in the same bandwidth.
• Subject to transponder power limitations and the practical constraints of the codes in
use, stations with traffic can access a transponder on demand without coordinating
their frequency (as in FDMA) or their time of transmission (as in TDMA) with any
central authority.
42
CDMA
• CDMA codes are typically 16 bits to many thousands of bits in length, and the bits
of a CDMA code are called chips to distinguish them from the message bits of a data
transmission.
• The data bits of the original message modulate the CDMA chip sequence, and the
chip rate is always much greater than the data rate.
• This greatly increases the speed of the digital transmission, widening its spectrum in
proportion to the length of the chip sequence.
• As a result, CDMA is also known as spread spectrum.
43
CDMA
• CDMA was originally developed for military communication systems, where its
purpose was to spread the energy of a data transmission across a wide bandwidth to
make detection of the signal more difficult.
• Spreading the energy in a signal across a wide bandwidth can make the noise power
spectral density (NPSD) in the receiver larger than the PSD of the received signal.
• The signal is then said to be buried in the noise, and the signal is much harder to
detect.
• The correlation process that recovers the original data bits from a DSSS spread
spectrum signal is also resistant to jamming.
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CDMA
• CDMA has become popular in cellular telephone systems where it is used to
enhance cell capacity.
• However, it has not been widely adopted by satellite communication systems

because it usually proves to be less efficient, in terms of capacity, than FDMA and
TDMA.
• The Globalstar LEO satellite system was designed to use CDMA for multiple access
by satellite telephones;
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CDMA
• One advantage of CDMA in this application is soft handoff in which the same signal
is received from two satellites during the period that one satellite is about to
disappear below the horizon and another satellite has just appeared above the
horizon.
• The GPS navigation system uses DSSS CDMA for the transmission of signals that
permit precise location of a receiver in three dimensions.
46
Technology
Module 5 Lecture 4
Dr Sanmukh Kaur
47
 To understand the signal formats, Modulation, coding and interference aspects of

VSAT systems
 Ability to identify the constraints, trade-off and interference issues related to VSAT
systems
48
Signal Formats
 The VSAT uplink signal, the inbound or in route channel, in a MF-TDMA multiple
access format must contain sufficient information for the intended receiver to
acquire the carrier frequency, lock onto the incoming data so that the timing of the
bit stream can be obtained, and then identify the start of the payload transmission.
 This generic procedure is shown in Fig.1
Fig.1 Generic sequence for the start of a burst from a VSAT inbound signal
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Signal Formats
 When the burst is received at the control station, the first part of the packet enables
the carrier recovery (CR) to occur, followed by the bit timing recovery (BTR).
 The unique word (UW) identifies the start of the payload in the new frame.
Modulation, Coding, and Interference Issues
 Modulation and channel coding are key considerations in determining the efficient
and error-free transfer of information over a communications channel.
 They also have an impact on the potential for interference to another system and
from another system.
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 A modulation that has a large number of bits per symbol (e.g., 64 quadrature
amplitude modulation [64 QAM]) will occupy a relatively small bandwidth but it
will require relatively high amplifier linearity and a high CNR in the receiver.
 It is also more susceptible to interference than modulations with fewer bits per
symbol.
 High-index modulations require significantly more margin than low-index

modulations.
 In choosing the most appropriate modulation and channel coding for a VSAT
system, ease of implementation is also a major factor since VSATs are very cost-
sensitive.
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 Faced with these tradeoff decisions, the most common forms of modulation used in
VSAT systems are QPSK and, when spectrum efficiency is less important, BPSK.
 In an ideal QPSK system with no channel coding, a value of Eb/N0 of 10.6 dB will
provide a BER of 10−6, corresponding to a receiver overall CNR of 13.6 dB,
ignoring any implementation margin.
 The CNR requirement can be significantly reduced if channel coding is applied.
Channel Coding
• Channel coding can take the form of a block code, a convolutional code, a turbo
code, or LDPC (low density parity check) code.
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Channel Coding
 Convolutional coding is a process where the encoding and decoding is applied to a
group of bits in sequence rather than a bit at a time, as in a block code.
 The number of bits in the encoding sequence, k, is called the constraint length of the
convolutional code.
 In the decoding process, k bits are used to evaluate the value of each bit transmitted.
 Since the encoding process is applied to the signal prior to transmission and is used
to detect and correct for bit errors, it is called a forward error correction (FEC) code.
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Channel Coding
 In a like manner, a block FEC code is applied to the channel prior to transmission.
 Convolutional and block codes can be used together on a channel.
 One example is a channel that first has an inner convolution code applied to the bit
sequence and then has an outer interleaved code such as a Reed-Solomon code
applied.
 Reed-Solomon codes combine good error detection capability with high code rates.
 This form of concatenated coding is used extensively in many communications

systems since the interleaved coding will counter burst errors while the
convolutional FEC coding will counter individual bit errors.
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Channel Coding
 DBS television is one example of such a coding approach, and the recording of
music on CDs is another.
 The encoding and decoding procedure is illustrated schematically in Fig .2.
Fig .2. Schematic of the encoding and decoding process when an inner and outer
code are applied to a telecommunications signal.
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Channel Coding
 The Reed-Solomon interleaved block code is applied after the FEC (either block or
convolutional) on the encoding side.
 The reverse occurs on the decoding side.
 FEC is applied first in the encoding process, it is then wrapped by the Reed-
Solomon code, which becomes the outer wrapping of the doubly coded signal
 For VSAT systems that have small traffic streams, excess processing delay can add
significantly to the end-to-end link delay.
 This is very important for GEO systems and for LEO/MEO systems with satellites
that have large onboard processing capabilities.
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Channel Coding
 The processing delay due to first interleaving a signal, then de-interleaving it adds a
fixed amount of overhead, as well as requiring buffering at both ends of the
transmission link.
 For this reason, Reed-Solomon outer codes are not normally added to signals that
have information rates below about 256 kbps, even though the lower Eb/N0value for
a given BER performance is so significant.
 For links that have no real requirement for instant response times and multimedia
interactivity, but require the best BER performance for a given Eb/No (typical of
most internet links), Reed-Solomon codes are a very practical way of reducing the
power requirements for a given link and BER specification.
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Interference
 Interference between systems operating with similar characteristics (i.e., frequency
bands, polarizations, and services) is usually the subject of intense debate,
particularly when a new system seeks to operate close to an existing system, in
terms of orbital separation or antenna beam directions.
 The interaction between operators seeking to ensure that no harmful interference is

caused by, or to, their respective systems is called coordination.
 The coordination process is the subject of extensive regulation by the ITU and
national frequency management authorities (e.g., the FCC in the United States).
 The key aspect in such coordination exercises lies in determining the power radiated
by the interfering station in the direction of the interfered with station.
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Interference
 The calculation of the received interference power will have four elements:
 The output power of the interfering station’s transmit amplifier
 The transmit gain of the interfering station’s antenna in the direction of the
interfered with station
 The receive gain of the interfered with station’s antenna in the direction of the
interfering transmissions
 The path loss between the two stations.
59
Technology
Module 5 Lecture 5
Dr Sanmukh Kaur
60
 To study the different types of antennas, transmitter and receiver designs for VSAT
Earth station engineering
 Familiarize with the antennas, indoor and outdoor units operation of VSAT earth
stations.
61
VSAT earth station engineering
Antennas
 The key element in a VSAT system is the earth station antenna used at VSAT earth
stations.
 The small size and low transmit power of a VSAT station are the factors that keep
the price of the earth station at a level that makes a VSAT network an economic
alternative to a terrestrial data network using telephone lines and modems.
 Large antennas are usually implemented using a symmetrical configuration, for ease
of construction, with the feed on the boresight axis.
 The feed can either be in front of the antenna ( a front – fed design) or behind the
antenna, as in Cassegrain or Gregorian design.
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 Fig.1 shows the three

antenna design
configurations.
 Configurations of front
- fed, Cassegrain, and
Gregorian antennas.
 The top three configurations

are axially symmetric,
while the bottom three are
offset – fed designs that
reduce the aperture blockage
considerably
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 The front-fed antenna has a paraboloidal reflector with a feed at its focus.
 The feed is often a scalar horn, a circular waveguide horn with a wide flare angle
and corrugations on the internal surface.
 When only a portion of the paraboloid is used, an offset reflector results.
 An offset reflector fed by a scalar horn is used as the preferred configuration for
most DBS-TV receiving antennas.
 The basic design of the Cassegrain antenna has a paraboloidal main reflector and a
hyperboloidal subreflector.
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 One focus of the subreflector is coincident with the focus of the main reflector, the
feed is at the other focus of subreflector.
 The surface profile of both reflectors can be modified by redistributing energy

across the aperture so as to increase the aperture efficiency and reduce blockage
caused by subreflector.
 This is called a shaped reflector Cassegrain antenna.
 The Cassegrain configuration is used widely for large earth station antennas.
 It is preferred over the Gregorian configuration because the subreflector is close to

the main reflector and therefore easier to support.
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 Where there is severe off-axis interference environment, an offset – fed Gregorian
design is best to use.
 Gregorian antennas are also occasionally used on DBS-TV satellite with a phased
array feed to create complex coverage regions on earth.
Transmitters and Receivers
 On the receive side, the antenna and feed components are connected by waveguide
to the front end, low noise amplifier (LNA).
 Behind the LNA, a mixer / down-converter changes the signal from radio frequency
(RF) to an intermediate frequency (IF).
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 After filtering and amplification, the IF signal is demodulated, demultiplexed and

decoded and the baseband signal is forwarded to the user.
 VSAT earth station has two basic components [Fig.1]:

- an outdoor unit (ODU)
- an indoor unit (IDU)
 The VSAT outdoor unit (ODU) is located where it will have a clear line of sight to
the satellite and is free from casual blockage of people or equipment moving in front
of it.
 The interfacility link (IFL) carries the electronic signal between the ODU and IDU
as well as power cables for the ODU and control signals from IDU.
67
Fig.1 Schematic of a VSAT user setup

68
 Fig. 2 gives a typical configuration of a VSAT that has modulator / demodulator
(modem) equipment located in the IDU.
Fig. 2 Schematic of the typical configuration of a VSAT earth station

69
 The LNC takes the received RF signal and after amplification mixes it down to the
IF for passing over the interfacility link (IFL) to the IDU.
 In the IDU, the demodulator extracts the information signal and passes it at
baseband to the baseband processor.
 The data terminal equipment then provides the application layer for the user to
interact with the information input.
 On the transmit operation, the user inputs data via the terminal equipment to the
baseband processor and from there to the modulator.
70
 The modulator places the information on a carrier at IF and this is sent via the
interfacility link to the high-power converter for up conversion to rf, amplification
and transmission via the antenna to the satellite.
 In some cases, the low noise block (LNB) or low noise converter (LNC) and the
HPB (high power block) or HPC (high power converter) house the complete RF
output and the RF input stages of the transmitter and receiver, the up-converters and
down-converters and, in many cases, the modem.
 With the mass production of VSATs, the LNBs and LNCs are being developed on
application specific integrated circuits (ASICs)
71
Technology
Module 5 Lecture 6
Dr Sanmukh Kaur
72
 To study the calculation of link margins for a VSAT STAR network
 Ability to analyze the link margins for an inbound and outbound satellite link and a
bent pipe and on board processing transponder.
73
Calculation of Link Margins for a VSAT STAR
Network
 The minimum allowed carrier to noise, (C / N)0 , for a typical inbound VSAT link is
6.0 dB, with BPSK modulation and half rate FEC encoding, giving a BER of 10-6 .
 This is called the threshold (C / N)0 value, and will vary depending on the
modulation and FEC methods used on the link.
 Ignoring system errors, such as mispointing the antennas or satellite problems, the
clear sky C / N ratio on a given inbound link can be reduced to the threshold (C / N)0
by either a rain fade on the uplink or a rain fade on the downlink.
 In a like manner, there are two rain fade margins for the outbound link:
- From the hub to the satellite (uplink)
- from the satellite to the VSAT (downlink)
74
Network
75
Network
 The entire two way system drops below the performance minimum when any one of
the low margin links drops below threshold (design margins are exceeded).
 We want a link failure to be much less likely on the satellite-hub links (either uplink
or downlink), because such a failure affects every VSAT in the network.
 Lack of performance or availability on a VSAT – satellite link (either uplink or

downlink) affects only the individual VSAT connection.
Link fade margin

• The link fade margin is found by using the reciprocal formula (C / N) ratio with (C /
N)0 value set to its threshold value.
76
Network
 The procedure for the calculation of link margin is different
- for networks using linear , bent pipe transponders
- for networks that are connected via a satellite that uses onboard processing (OBP)
 A bent pipe transponder simply translates the uplink frequency to the downlink
frequency, without any regeneration of the signal.
 A rain fade on the uplink will therefore be reflected in reduced output power of the
satellite on the downlink.
 When OBP is present, the transmitted power from the satellite is always held
constant, irrespective of any fade on the incoming, uplink signal.
77
Network
 An uplink fade, therefore, causes a worse BER to be received in the transponder on
that uplink, which will add errors to the signal to be transmitted on the downlink
from the satellite.
 Hence with OBP, bit error rates on the uplink and downlink add as follows:
(BER)overall = (BER)uplink + (BER)downlink (1)
 With a bent pipe transponder, link margins are calculated differently for the uplink +
downlink, forward (outbound) and return (inbound) links.
78
Network
 On the downlinks, the reciprocal (C/N) formula is used to find the lowest value of
(C/N)down [= (C/N)down min] that, combined with (C / N)up, gives the threshold value
for C/N called (C/N)threshold.
1 / (C/N)threshold = 1 / (C/N)up + 1 / (C/N)down min (2)
1 / (C/N)down min = 1 / (C/N)threshold - 1 / (C/N)up (3)
79
Link Margins for a VSAT STAR Network
 Rain attenuation on the uplink will cause the power received at the transponder to
fall, causing the output power from the transponder to be reduced.
 On an inbound link with many VSAT stations operating in SCPC-FDMA, rain

fading on one VSAT uplink will not significantly affect the total power received by
the satellite, so the transponder operating point will not change and the transponder
output power for that link will fall linearly with uplink attenuation.
 The downlink attenuation margin in most VSAT networks tend to be small, and is
usually limiting factor in the network design.
 Uplink power control (UPC) at the hub station can maintain a relatively constant
power level at the input to the transponder, which in turn increases the fade margin.
80
Link Margins for a VSAT STAR Network
 Most UPLC systems do not add power to the uplink until at least 1- to 2- dB rain
fade is confirmed on the downlink so as to avoid both transponder saturation
problems and interference into other systems.
81
System Design Procedure
 Few VSAT system designs start from scratch.
 In most cases, either a satellite already exists and a VSAT network has to be
designed around its capabilities or a VSAT network is already in place and the
opportunity occurs to upgrade it with a new satellite launch.
 In both cases, the VSAT system needs to be optimized carefully, balancing the
transmission requirements of the inbound and outbound links so that the space
segment capacity is used efficiently.
82

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Amity School of Engg &

 To identify the implementation of VSAT network architectures

 Identify the type, requirements and comparison of network architectures and

 The acronym VSAT stands for very small aperture terminal.

 The first earth station antennas used in commercial satellite communications

 These large antennas operated in C-band (6/4 GHz).

 With the rapid expansion of satellite telecommunications worldwide, there was a

 One way implementation mode is used in the broadcast satellite service.

 By means of proprietary software in the user terminals different parts of the

 The relatively high capacity downlink stream is not complemented by an uplink

 The internet protocol IP is therefore split between a satellite downlink (outbound)

 Two – way implementation:

Fig.1 VSAT star and mesh network

 A schematic of the OSI/ISO layers is depicted in Fig.2.

 Few communications systems conform in an easily identifiable way to the seven

Fig.2. Schematic of the OSI / ISO protocol stacks

 Some systems do not send acknowledgments, only NAK signals to request a

 Many of the early protocols had a connection time-out of a few milliseconds.

 To understand different multiple access technologies used for satellite communication

 Ability to analyze the suitability and application of different multiple access

 To maintain continuous, uninterrupted communications, it is essential for the link

 Pure ALOHA, which is a random access scheme, has a maximum throughput of

 The occupied bandwidth, B, of a radio frequency (RF) channel carrying a digital

 If an α = 0.35 SRRC filter is used, the occupied RF bandwidth of a 64 kbps QPSK

Fig.1 64 kbps equivalent voice channel accessing a satellite using FDMA

 Such a case, using a shared transponder, is illustrated in Fig.2.

 To understand different multiple access technologies used for satellite communication

 Ability to analyze the suitability and application of different multiple access

 TDMA systems, because the signals are digital

 The transmission delay is unavoidable, but any additional delays should be

Fig. 1 Concept of TDMA.

 The burst transmission is assembled at a transmitting earth station so that it will

Demand assignment multiple access (DAMA)

• An example is a LEO satellite system providing links to mobile telephones.

• As a percentage of total time, the use of an individual telephone is likely to be less

• Demand assignment allows a satellite channel to be allocated to a user on demand,

• As a result, CDMA is also known as spread spectrum.

• However, it has not been widely adopted by satellite communication systems

 To understand the signal formats, Modulation, coding and interference aspects of

 This generic procedure is shown in Fig.1

Modulation, Coding, and Interference Issues

 High-index modulations require significantly more margin than low-index

 The CNR requirement can be significantly reduced if channel coding is applied.

 Convolutional and block codes can be used together on a channel.

 This form of concatenated coding is used extensively in many communications

 The encoding and decoding procedure is illustrated schematically in Fig .2.

 The reverse occurs on the decoding side.

 The interaction between operators seeking to ensure that no harmful interference is

 The output power of the interfering station’s transmit amplifier

 The path loss between the two stations.

 Fig.1 shows the three

 The top three configurations

 When only a portion of the paraboloid is used, an offset reflector results.

 The surface profile of both reflectors can be modified by redistributing energy

 This is called a shaped reflector Cassegrain antenna.

 It is preferred over the Gregorian configuration because the subreflector is close to

Transmitters and Receivers

 After filtering and amplification, the IF signal is demodulated, demultiplexed and

 VSAT earth station has two basic components [Fig.1]: