From Dishes to Distributed Arrays: Towards Efficient and Interference-Free Satellite Ground Stations
Session
Session VIII: Ground Systems - Enterprise
Location
Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Abstract
The rapid growth of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations, driven by initiatives such as Starlink and Kuiper, has enabled global internet access, Earth observation, and emerging direct-to-device (D2D) applications. However, this surge in satellite deployments has outpaced the expansion of ground station infrastructure, creating a critical bottleneck for scalable and low-latency communication. Traditional ground stations, predominantly based on mechanically steered parabolic dishes, are ill-suited for tracking multiple fast-moving LEO satellites simultaneously due to latency, operational inefficiencies, and underutilized resources. While phased array antennas offer electronically steerable, multi-beam capabilities, their widespread adoption in ground stations is hindered by challenges in achieving high antenna gain, increased power demands, and prohibitive costs. To address these limitations, we propose a distributed phased array-based ground station architecture that coherently combines multiple small phased arrays to deliver high analog beamforming gain and support multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) communication. This approach leverages cost-effective phased array terminals, such as those deployed in commercial user equipment, and enables seamless tracking of multiple satellites with improved spectral efficiency and reduced latency. Preliminary simulations demonstrate the viability of this architecture, highlighting its potential to scale ground station capacity and meet the demands of next-generation LEO satellite networks.
Document Type
Event
From Dishes to Distributed Arrays: Towards Efficient and Interference-Free Satellite Ground Stations
Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, UT
The rapid growth of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations, driven by initiatives such as Starlink and Kuiper, has enabled global internet access, Earth observation, and emerging direct-to-device (D2D) applications. However, this surge in satellite deployments has outpaced the expansion of ground station infrastructure, creating a critical bottleneck for scalable and low-latency communication. Traditional ground stations, predominantly based on mechanically steered parabolic dishes, are ill-suited for tracking multiple fast-moving LEO satellites simultaneously due to latency, operational inefficiencies, and underutilized resources. While phased array antennas offer electronically steerable, multi-beam capabilities, their widespread adoption in ground stations is hindered by challenges in achieving high antenna gain, increased power demands, and prohibitive costs. To address these limitations, we propose a distributed phased array-based ground station architecture that coherently combines multiple small phased arrays to deliver high analog beamforming gain and support multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) communication. This approach leverages cost-effective phased array terminals, such as those deployed in commercial user equipment, and enables seamless tracking of multiple satellites with improved spectral efficiency and reduced latency. Preliminary simulations demonstrate the viability of this architecture, highlighting its potential to scale ground station capacity and meet the demands of next-generation LEO satellite networks.
