Performance assessment of Fade Mitigation Techniques for the GEOCAST IST project with transparent and OBP architectures

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Castanet, Laurent^; | Bolea-Alamañac, Ana^; | Bousquet, Michel | Claverotte, Laurent | Gutierrez-Galvan, Ricardo

Affiliations: ElectroMagnetics and Radar Department, ONERA, Toulouse, France | Co-operative Research Lab on Aerospace Communications, TESA, Toulouse, France | Aerospace Electronics and Communications Programmes, Toulouse, SUPAERO, France | Alcatel Alenia Space, Toulouse, France

Note: [] Corresponding author: Laurent Castanet, ElectroMagnetics and Radar Department, ONERA, 2 avenue E. Belin – BP 4025, 31055 Toulouse Cedex 4, France. E-mail: Laurent.Castanet@onera.fr.

Note: [] Now with ESA/ESTEC.

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to discuss the issues related to the use of Fade Mitigation Techniques (FMT) for the GEOCAST satellite system, considering both transparent and regenerative payloads. The main characteristics of the GEOCAST systems are presented first. Baseline link budgets are established both for the transparent return link and for the regenerative configurations. Then the FMTs designed for GEOCAST are presented. Theoretical performance of the FMTs and their practical implementation are described focusing on the FMT control loop design. Finally, simulation results for system performance with emphasis on physical layer, are presented both for transparent and regenerative configurations.

Keywords: GEOCAST, propagation impairment, Fade Mitigation Technique, fade estimation, FMT control logic, air interface

DOI: 10.3233/SC-2009-0326

Journal: Space Communications, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 1-12, 2009