Optimization of a Nano-Satellite Communication System Through a Software Defined Radio (SDR) Platform Implementation

Abstract

In small satellite communications systems, Software Defined Radios (SDR) have been used for increase the system flexibilization both in the space segment and on the ground station implementations. In this paper, an SDR implementation for the space segment is proposed in order to optimize the communication system designed for the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) environment observation satellite (Ten-Koh). This optimization consists in the integration of a Raspberry PI module and a LimeSDR-mini RF module using embedded Linux, Python and GNU radio tools. The Ten-Koh mission, communication system architecture, on-orbit mission constraints and issues will be described in order to be compared with the proposed optimization to demonstrate the improvements in terms of performance, flexibility and developing time. The purpose is to demonstrate that the proposed system can be replaced safely in future satellite missions similar to Ten-Koh meeting the mission requirements.

Keywords

• satellite
• .communications
• software defined radio (sdr)
• commercial.off-the.shelf components (cots)