A Development of Satellite Communication Link Analysis Tool

Abstract

In a Satellite communication system, a link budget analysis is the detailed investigation of signal gains and losses moving through a channel from a sender to receiver. It inspects the fading of passed on data signal waves due to the process of spreading or propagation, including transmitter and receiver antenna gains, feeder cables, and related losses. The extent of the proposed tool is to make an effective, efficient, and user-friendly approach to calculate link budget analysis. It is also related to the satellite communication correlation framework by building up a graphical interface link analysis tool utilizing STK® software with the interface of C# programming. It provides better kinds of graphical display techniques, exporting and importing data files, printing link information, access data, azimuth-elevation-range (AER), and simulation is also possible at once. The components of the link budget analysis tool include transmitter gain, effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP), free space loss, propagation loss, frequency Doppler shift, flux density, link margin, elevation plot, etc. This tool can be useful for amateur users (e.g., CubeSat developers in the universities) or nanosat developers who may not know about the RF communication system of the satellite and the orbital mechanics (e.g., orbit propagators) principle used in the satellite link analysis.

Keywords

• satellite communication
• link budget
• data access
• graphical user interface (gui)
• nanosatellite