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Earth Station

An earth station is essential for satellite communication, responsible for receiving and transmitting information while ensuring signal quality. It consists of major subsystems including a transmitter, receiver, antenna, and tracking equipment, with configurations influenced by location and service type. The tracking system is crucial for maintaining communication with satellites, utilizing methods such as automatic, manual, and program tracking to ensure accurate alignment.

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29 views4 pages

Earth Station

An earth station is essential for satellite communication, responsible for receiving and transmitting information while ensuring signal quality. It consists of major subsystems including a transmitter, receiver, antenna, and tracking equipment, with configurations influenced by location and service type. The tracking system is crucial for maintaining communication with satellites, utilizing methods such as automatic, manual, and program tracking to ensure accurate alignment.

Uploaded by

rsurampa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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EARTH STATION

Earth station is a vital element in any satellite communication network. The function of an earth station is
to receive information from or transmit information to, the satellite network inthe most cost-effective and
reliable manner while retaining the desired signal quality. The design of earth station configuration
depends upon many factors and its location. But it is fundamentally governed by its location which are
1. In land, 2. On a ship at sea, 3. Onboard aircraft

The factors are


1. Type of services, 2. Frequency bands used, 3. Function of the transmitter, 4. Function of the receiver, 5.
Antenna characteristics
Earth Station Configuration
Any earth station consists of four major subsystems
Transmitter, Receiver, Antenna, Tracking equipment
Two other important subsystems are
Terrestrial interface equipment, Power supply.
The earth station depends on the following parameters
Transmitter power, Choice of frequency, Gain of antenna, Antenna efficiency, Antenna pointing
accuracy, Noise temperature, Local conditions such as wind, weather etc,, Polarization, Propagation
losses
The functional elements of a basic digital earth station are shown in the below figure

Fig- General Configuration of an Earth Station

Digital information in the form of binary digits from terrestrial networks enters earth station and is then
processed (filtered, multiplexed, formatted etc.) by the base band equipment.
The encoder performs error correction coding to reduce the error rate, by introducing extra digits into
digital stream generated by the base band equipment. The extra digits carryinformation. The presence
of noise and non-ideal nature of any communication channelproduces error rate is established above
which the received information is not stable.
The function of the modulator is to accept the symbol stream from the encoder and use it to modulate an
intermediate frequency (I.F) carrier. In satellite communication, I.F carrier frequency is chosen at 70 MHz for
communication using a 36 MHz transponder bandwidth and at 140 MHz for a transponder bandwidth of 54
or 72 MHz. The I.F is needed because it isdifficult to design a modulator that works at the uplink frequency
of 6 GHz (or 14GHz) directly.
The modulated I.F carrier is fed to the up-converter and frequency-translated to the uplinkr-f frequency.
This modulated R.F carrier is then amplified by the high power amplifier (HPA) to asuitable level for
transmission and radiation by the antenna to the satellite.
On the receive side, the earth station antenna receives the low-level modulated R.F carrierin the downlink
frequency spectrum.
The low noise amplifier (LNA) is used to amplify the weak received signals and improvethe signal to Noise
ratio (SNR). The error rate requirements can be met more easily.
R.F is to be reconverted to I.F at 70 or 140 MHz because it is easier design ademodulation to work at these
frequencies than 4 or 12 GHz.
The demodulator estimate which of the possible symbols was transmitted based onobservation of the
received if carrier.
The decoder performs a function opposite that of the encoder. Because the sequence of symbols recovered
by the demodulator may contain errors, the decoder must use the uniqueness of the redundant digits
introduced by the encoder to correct the errors and recoverinformation-bearing digits.
The information stream is fed to the base-band equipment for processing for delivery tothe terrestrial
network.
The tracking equipments track the satellite and align the beam towards it to facilitatecommunication.
ANTENNA SUBSYSTEM
The antenna system consist of
Feed System, Antenna Reflector, Mount, Antenna tracking SystemFEED SYSTEM
The feed along with the reflector is the radiating/receiving element of electromagnetic waves. The
reciprocity property of the feed element makes the earth station antenna system suitable for transmission
and reception of electromagnetic waves. The way the waves coming in and going out is called feed
configuration Earth Station feed systems most commonly used in satellite communication are:
Axi-Symmetric Configuration, Asymmetric Configuration

ANTENNA REFLECTOR
Mostly parabolic reflectors are used as the main antenna for the earth stations because of the high gain
available from the reflector and the ability of focusing a parallel beam into a pointat the focus where the
feed, i.e., the receiving/radiating element is located .For large antenna system more than one reflector
surfaces may be used in as in the cassegrain antenna system.
ANTENNA MOUNT
Type of antenna mount is determined mainly by the coverage requirement and tracking
requirements of the antenna systems. Different types of mounts used for earth stationantenna are:
i) The Azimuth –elevation mount
This mount consists of a primary vertical axis. Rotation around this axis controls the azimuth angle. The
horizontal axis is mounted over the primary axis, providing the elevation angle control.
ii) The X-Y mount.
It consists of a horizontal primary axis(X-axis) and a secondary axis (Y-axis) and at rightangles to
it.Movement around these axes provides necessary steering.

EARTH STATION TRACKING SYSTEM


Tracking is essential when the satellite drift, as seen by an earth station antenna is a significant fraction
of an earth station’s antenna beam width. An earth station’s tracking system is required to perform some
of the functions such as
i) Satellite acquisition ii)Automatic tracking iii)Manual tracking iv)Program tracking.
a) Satellite Acquisition
Before communication can be established it is necessary to acquire a satellite. One method is to program
the antenna to perform a scan around the predicted position of the satellite. The automatic tacking is
switched on when the receiver signal strength is sufficient to lock the tracking receiver to the beacon.
b) Automatic Tracking:
After acquisition a satellite needs to be tracked continuously. This function is performed bythe
automatic tracking system .Auto-tack systems are closed-loop control systems and
are therefore highly accurate. This tracking mode is the preferred configuration whenaccuracy is the
dominant criterion.
c) Manual track:
To avoid a total loss of communication due to a failure in the tracking system, earth stationsgenerally
also have manual mode. In this mode an antenna is moved through manual commands.
d) Program Track:
In this tracking mode the antenna is driven to the predicted satellite position by a computer. The satellite
position predictions are usually supplied by the satellite operators. It may be noted that since a program
track system is an open-loop control system, its accuracy is mainly governed by the accuracy of the
prediction data.
MAIN ELEMENTS OF A SATELLITE TRACKING SYSTEM
Communication satellites transmit a beacon which is used by earth stations for tracking. The
received beacon signal is fed into the auto-track receiver where trackingcorrections or, in some auto-track
systems estimated positions of the satellite are derived. In other auto-track techniques the feed system
provides the required components of error signals. The outputs of the auto-track receivers are processed
and used to drive each axis of the antenna to the estimated satellite position.
In the manual mode, an operator sets the desired angles for each axis on a control console. This position
is compared with the actual antenna position, obtained through shaft encoders, and the difference signal
is used to drive the antenna.
In the program track mode the desired antenna position is obtained from a computer. The difference in
the desired antenna positions constitutes the error and is used to drive the antenna.

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