Session
Weekday Session 7: Communications
Location
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract
With advances in sensor technology and data services, the latest earth observation missions tend to require substantial amounts of remote sensing data to be downlinked to earth stations with shorter delivery times. To meet these demands, AXELSPACE is developing a Ka-band downlink system (AxelLink-Ka) in cooperation with Tokyo Institute of Technology 1 that combines a broadband Ka-band transmitter and an active phased array antenna.2 The prototype of the AxelLink-Ka was found to achieve a data rate of up to 4.2 Gbps with using dual polarizaion of Right- and Left-Handed Circular Polarization (RHCP/LHCP) in the Ka-band (25.5—27.0 GHz) and electrical beam steering covering ±66-degree range with the small enough Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) to be installed on a microsatellite: the size ∼ 220 × 170 × 100 mm, the weight < 2, 300g, and the power consumption < 60 W. This paper provides an overview of the entire system, simulation results of link budgets, and design and measurement results of the hardware and software.
Ka-Band Multi-Gbps High Speed Downlink With Electrically Steerable Beam
Utah State University, Logan, UT
With advances in sensor technology and data services, the latest earth observation missions tend to require substantial amounts of remote sensing data to be downlinked to earth stations with shorter delivery times. To meet these demands, AXELSPACE is developing a Ka-band downlink system (AxelLink-Ka) in cooperation with Tokyo Institute of Technology 1 that combines a broadband Ka-band transmitter and an active phased array antenna.2 The prototype of the AxelLink-Ka was found to achieve a data rate of up to 4.2 Gbps with using dual polarizaion of Right- and Left-Handed Circular Polarization (RHCP/LHCP) in the Ka-band (25.5—27.0 GHz) and electrical beam steering covering ±66-degree range with the small enough Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) to be installed on a microsatellite: the size ∼ 220 × 170 × 100 mm, the weight < 2, 300g, and the power consumption < 60 W. This paper provides an overview of the entire system, simulation results of link budgets, and design and measurement results of the hardware and software.
