Optimum Transponder Design for Pseudonoise-Coded Ranging Systems, Weak Signals

Optimization of the bandwidth of a turnaround transponder is carried out for weak signals at the transponder receiver. Optimum transponder bandwidth is found to be around 0.77-1, where T is the period of one element of the ranging code. Linear transponders are compared with transponders having baseband limiting. Phase modulation is assumed. It is shown that, for weak signals, linear transponders are preferable for a partitioning of the transponder transmitted power giving (carrier power)/(total power) > 0.43, while baseband limiters are preferred for (carrier power)/(total power) < 0.43.     

Management of transponder resources in mobile satellite systems

Allocation of L-band spectrum for land mobile satellite (MSAT) services in Mobile-WARC-87 paves the way for the introduction of such services in the early 1990s. An overview of the proposed network architecture of the Canadian MSAT network is presented. Management of transponder resources, i.e. power, bandwidth, and spot-beam antennas, which poses a set of unique and significant problems in the design and operation of MSAT networks, is addressed. The three-level hierarchical approach used by the Canadian network is described, and the technical requirements for solving the above problems are identified. The two upper levels employ reconfigurable fixed assignment for allocating transponders to antenna spot beams, and transponder power and bandwidth to different services. The lowest level employs demand assignment and packet multiple access protocols for resource sharing among different subscribers. Uncoupling the resource management problems into manageable portions reduces the complexity and enhances the robustness of the network     

Single Channel Per Carrier Satellite Repeater Channel Capacity

This paper analyzes the performance of a number of modulation and speech processing techniques that have been considered for single voice channel per carrier transmissions via satellite. This transmission mode is applicable to demand assignment systems, which make possible the most efficient loading of the satellite transponder in applications where the traffic at individual Earth terminals is not sufficient to justify a substantial number of dedicated channels. The analysis basically determines the operating point for the satellite transponder which minimizes the required Earth terminal G/T. The fraction of the total link noise allocated to uplink noise is treated as a parameter, so that the cost of improving G/T may be traded against the cost of providing increased Earth terminal transmitter power. Both analog and digital modulation techniques are considered, together with various practical combinations of syllabic companding, voice-actuated carriers, and error-correcting codes. The results are presented in general analytic form, applicable to any modulation technique for which carrier-to-noise density ratio, channel width, and guardband width may be specified. Curves showing required G/T as a function of the total number of voice channels per transponder are also presented for the above-mentioned signal processing techniques, assuming "CCIR/CITT type" speech quality and transponder EIRP and bandwidth typical of current domestic satellite configurations.     

Single Channel Per Carrier Satellite Repeater Capacity, Part 2

This paper analyzes the performance of a number of speech processing techniques that have been considered for single voice channel per carrier transmissions via satellite. This transmission mode is applicable to demand assigiment systems, which make possible the most efficient loading of the satellite transponder applications where the traffic at individual earth terminals is not sufficient to justify a substantial number of dedicated channels. The analysis basically determines the operating point for the satellite transponder which minimizes the required earth terminal G/T. Both analog and digital modulation techniques are considered, and the effects of syllabic companding and voice actuation of carriers are demonstrated. The results are presented in general analytic form, applicable to any modulation technique for which carrier-to-noise density ratio, channel width, and guardband width may be specified. Full carrier modulation is assumed. Curves are also furnished showing the required G/T and uplink per carrier EIRP as a function of the number of voice channels per transponder and the transponder gain. "CCIR/CCITT type" speech quality is assumed, together with a transponder El RP and bandwidth typical of current domestic satellite configurations.     

Satellite mobile communication and radio positioning systemplanning aspects

System aspects of mobile communication and position determination by satellite are described. Topics of discussion are the choice of frequency, type of modulation/multiple access and system design, and considering the effects of active and passive intermodulation and multipath interference. Communication performance and position determination analyses are conducted with respect to small-scale domestic mobile communication systems, where the satellite mobile transponder constitutes only a fraction of the otherwise fixed services C-band or Ku-band payload, and where the orbit position of the spare satellite(s) is dictated by considerations other than purely radio positioning. The system tradeoffs and arguments presented lead to a particular modulation/multiple access system, which provides high channel capacity, good ranging accuracy, and high resistance to multipath fading     

Optimum Design of Single Channel per Carrier Satellite Systems

Optimization of available satellite power and transponder bandwidth is utilized to minimize the Earth station G/T in satellite channel per carrier (SCPC) systems. The corresponding optimum transponder output backoff is obtained. Applications in system design are given. In a previous paper [1] the channel capacity of a satellite transponder handling single channel per carrier (SCPC) transmission was derived. The link carrier-to-noise (C/N) ratio was maximized over the output backoff and the maximum bandwidth available was determined. Given the bandwidth per channel for each carrier, the channel capacity was obtained. The objective of the present investigation is to derive the minimum G/T of the Earth station in SCPC systems by optimum utilization of available satellite power and transponder bandwidth. Applications in system design are discussed.     

A Domestic Satellite Design

This paper deals with the design parameters of a communications satellite which would be capable of providing domestic telephony, data, and television distribution services. Certain important aspects of the design are discussed, including satellite antenna beam coverage, transponder bandwidth, and transponder radiated power for a given weight range. A baseline satellite design is then presented which has 24 transponders (with 4000 watts radiated power on-axis and 34-MHz radio-frequency bandwidth) fully accessible from the 48 contiguous United States. The design uses crossed linear polarization to reuse the satellite transmit and receive frequency spectrum.     

Limiter Intermodulation Improvement Due to Selective Carrier Spacing

In many space communications applications, the intermodulation between carriers, due to limiting in a common amplifier, reduces the overall signal-to-noise ratio of the signal received at the ground station. By selectively spacing the carriers, one is often able to avoid the strong or low-order intermodulation. The question arises how much improvement is gained in carrier-to-interference ratio and signal-to-interference ratio by selectively spacing carriers such that low-order cross products are avoided or their impact is effectively reduced. The following analysis investigates interference improvement due to selective carrier spacing for several spacing sequences relative to equal carrier spacing. It is shown that the intermodulation noise reduction depends on the carrier packing density of the selected spacing sequence. The carrier-to-intermodulation noise ratio increases with the number of participating carriers, while the bandwidth efficiency decreases. The signal-to-intermodulation noise ratio improves not only because of the improved carrier-to-intermodulation noise ratio, but also because the remaining interference components have spectra with larger frequency spreading.     

The autocorrelation of m-sequences over nonprime finitefields

Nonbinary m-sequences (maximal length sequences) for spread-spectrum communication systems that have a two-level autocorrelation are presented. The autocorrelation function of an m -sequence over the Galois field of q elements GF(q), where q=p^k, for p a prime and k an integer greater than 1, is developed and shown to be bilevel when the elements of GF(q) are expressed as elements of a vector space over the pth roots of unity     

On the uniform sampling of a sinusoidal signal

It is generally accepted that a monochromatic signal such as sin 2πWt (W>0) must be sampled at a uniform rate greater than the ostensible Nyquist rate of 2W samples per to effect a reconstruction of the signal. It is shown that a sinusoid of frequency W Hz is completely determined by its samples taken at the uniform rate of 2r samples per second, where r>0 is arbitrary subject only to the restriction that W ≠kr for any positive integer k. In particular, a pure sinusoid may be sampled uniformly without loss of information at arbitrarily small rates     

Low-cost TDRSS communications for NASA's long duration balloonproject

A transponder and RF ground support equipment that are making tracking and data relay satellite system (TDRSS) communications available to lower budget NASA projects are discussed. The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)/Wallops Flight Facility's long duration balloon project (LDBP) will be the first to take advantage of this TDRSS user hardware for communications through the TDRSS S-band multiple access system during their around-the-world scientific balloon flight campaigns. The transponder is one tenth the cost of the current generation space-qualified transponder, and the TDRSS user RF test set (TURFTS) is less than one half the cost of the currently available transponder test equipment     

Frequency diversity in millimeter wave satellite communications

Dual-band frequency diversity seems to be an effective fade countermeasure to rain-induced attenuation in satellite communications above 20 GHz. This method, particularly suited for satellites operating in two frequency bands, typically K_a band and C or K_u band, achieves very low levels of outage probability especially where the rain fades are severe. A theoretical analysis of a frequency diversity system is performed to evaluate the amount of reserve capacity needed to counteract fading in a satellite network. The problems that arise in implementing adaptive fade countermeasures because of the dynamic characteristics of fading are discussed, and the results of the simulations performed using the attenuation time series at 11.6 GHz, measured with the Sirio satellite throughout four years, are presented     

Distribution of general noncentral positive definite quadratic formin K-dimensions

The authors present a series solution using Hermite polynomials to the long-standing problem of computing the probability P that positive definite noncentral quadratic form d(x) of a Gaussian random vector x∈R satisfies d( x)⩽r² for any given r∈R. This problem has wide applications in radar, tracking, air traffic control, etc. The fast-converging series solution presented is very accurate and can be performed rapidly using the recursion relations for Hermite polynomials     

Estimation of radar detection and false alarm probability

The accuracy with which detection and false alarm probabilities can be estimated with a limited amount of measured radar data is addressed. A simple simulation method for estimating the statistical performance of a radar detection system is presented. Confidence limits and a rule of thumb for accuracy for the estimated probabilities are presented along with procedures for calculating them. It is concluded that the minimum value of N used in a detection radar signal simulation should be 10/P_FA when the simple simulation method is used, where P_FA is the probability of false alarm, and that a value closer to 100/P _FA is preferable     

星间链路数量受限的导航卫星网络链路分配问题

对星间链路数量非常有限、需要同时满足星间测距和星间通信需求的导航卫星网络的链路分配问题进行了研究。首先,分析了导航卫星网络的特点,并设计了一种基于有限状态自动机(FSA)的拓扑处理机制。然后,将星间测距需求作为一个约束,以星间通信的延时性能为优化目标,将导航卫星网络的链路分配问题建模为一个多目标优化问题。最后,针对建立的多目标优化问题,分别提出一种基于首次改善(FI)的本地搜索算法和基于模拟退火(SA)的启发式优化算法以对链路分配问题进行求解,并提出一种基于分支交换策略的新链路分配生成方法。仿真结果表明,通过FI算法和SA算法获得的优化链路分配的网络延时性能均得到了改进,且SA算法的性能要优于FI算法;同时,FSA的状态持续时间的减小有利于获得网络延时性能好的链路分配。     

SAR resolution in the presence of phase errors

The author analyzes the effects of phase errors on synthetic aperture radar (SAR). The theory is applied to the following question: how does the achievable resolution vary with the carrier frequency when optimum quadratic focus and/or optimum processing interval (synthetic aperture length) are used? Numerous related results are given, so that much of the material is tutorial. For phase errors corresponding to uncompensated motion, the best achievable RMS resolution with any phase error spectrum satisfies the derived equation. For motion-induced phase errors it is seen that resolution improves with increasing carrier frequency when the first term in the expression applies (e.g. for phase errors concentrated at low frequencies) and resolution is independent of carrier frequency when R δ/v/v is the smaller term (e.g. with broad band or high frequency phase errors)     

Periodic ambiguity function of CW signals with perfect periodicautocorrelation

A periodic ambiguity function (PAF) is discussed which describes the response of a correlation receiver to a CW signal modulated by a periodic waveform, when the reference signal in the receiver is constructed from an integral number N, of periods T, of the transmitted signal. The PAF is a generalization of the periodic autocorrelation function, to the case of non-zero Doppler shift. It is shown that the PAF of N periods is obtained by multiplying the PAF of a single period by the universal function sin(Nπν T)/N sin(πνT), where ν is the Doppler shift, to phase-modulated signals which exhibit perfect periodic autocorrelation when there is no Doppler shift. The PAF of these signals exhibits universal cuts along the delay and Doppler axes. These cuts are functions only of t, N and the number M, the modulation bits in one period     

A divide and conquer approach to least-squares estimation

The problem of estimating parameters &thetas; which determine the mean μ(&thetas;) of a Gaussian-distributed observation X is considered. It is noted that the maximum-likelihood (ML) estimate, in this case the least-squares estimate, has desirable statistical properties but can be difficult to compute when μ(&thetas;) is a nonlinear function of &thetas;. An estimate formed by combining ML estimates based on subsections of the data vector X is proposed as a computationally inexpensive alternative. The main result is that this alternative estimate, termed here the divide-and-conquer (DAC) estimate, has ML performance in the small-error region when X is appropriately subdivided. As an example application, an inexpensive range-difference-based position estimator is derived and shown by means of Monte-Carlo simulation to have small-error-region mean-square error equal to the Cramer-Rao lower bound     

单载波干扰对星载扩频应答机码跟踪回路影响研究

扩频码同步是基于扩频体制卫星测控通信中的一项关键技术。研究单载波对星载扩频应答机中全时间超前-滞后非相干跟踪回路的影响,分析单载波干扰存在时跟踪抖动的恶化程度,给出相应的数学表达式,并进行了Matlab仿真。仿真结果表明：在一定的跟踪回路带宽下,恶化程度随着系统的扩频增益或频偏的增加而减小,并随着干信比的增加而增加。单载波干扰不变的前提下,恶化程度随着回路带宽的增加而增加。     

A parallel square-root algorithm for modified extended Kalmanfilter

A parallel square-root algorithm and its systolic array implementation are proposed for performing modified extended Kalman filtering (MEKF). The proposed parallel square-root algorithm is designed based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) and the Faddeev algorithm, and a very large scale integration (VLSI) systolic array architecture is developed for its implementation. Compared to other square root Kalman filtering algorithms, the proposed method is more numerically stable. The VLSI architecture described has good parallel and pipelining characteristics in applying to the MEKF and achieves higher efficiency. For n-dimensional state vector estimations, the proposed architecture consists of O(2n²) processing elements and uses O ((s+17)n) time-steps for a complete iteration at each instant, in contrast to the complexity of O((s+6) n³) time-steps for a sequential implementation, where s≈log n