Length: 4 Days
Satellite Communications Design and Engineering Training
With an expected 1,000+ launchings of new satellites per year by 2025, opportunities have never been better for satellite engineers.
A satellite engineer is someone who may design satellite equipment and write computer programs to control a satellite remotely from Earth once it’s placed in orbit. These engineers may also be called upon to test the functionality and communication systems from the ground of satellites already in orbit. This might also include identifying areas of improvement and updating the satellite programs from the ground.
No matter where the satellite is located a satellite engineer must still be able to write software programs to keep them functioning and even to add new capabilities if required.
These specialized engineers must also be able to troubleshoot and diagnose issues with a satellite and design a method to fix the issue. They would also provide status updates on the satellite’s capabilities and status.
Many satellite engineers are hired by defense contractors and aerospace companies. Those in this career field may also have the title of aerospace satellite engineers.
Continuing education is especially critical for satellite engineers because their industry changes and adapts constantly as new ideas and technologies advance forward.
There are many new developments over the past few years that involve SATCOM design and engineering. For example more is being done in the realm of transmitting data from observation satellites. Several observation satellites have been developed to continuously monitor the Earth for probing the environment and forecasting weather. These satellites possess space radio stations on board which they use to collect data and transmit it back to the Earth through feeder links.
Also, data transmission using deep space probes is trending. The power, volume, and mass of the onboard equipment in deep space probes are strictly limited and so the transmit power and antenna diameter is also restricted. Thus, a high power transmitter and huge receiving antenna are generally equipped in the ground station to compensate for the onboard limitations.
There’s also a big push to supply internet broadband service to space planes and aircraft. While high speed access to internet is possible in several aircrafts today, Unattended Aerial Vehicles (UAV), and high altitude platforms are also promising contenders for the optical communication system applications.
Satellite design and engineering plays huge into IoT and connected car development. Every operator is adding the connected car portfolio as emerging segment.4 LEO satellites. LEO satellite based High Throughput data supply is taking huge momentum to meet the high capacity requirement with low latency.
And of course it’s impossible to not be aware of communication within clusters of satellites, especially after recent SpaceX launchings.
Satellite Communications Design and Engineering Training Course by Tonex
The Satellite Communications Design and Engineering Training provides principles and technologies used in the design and performance of satellite communications systems including: fixed point to point, broadcasting, mobile, data relay, radio navigation, communications, military applications, intelligence/ISR, imaging, and other related satellite based applications.
The Satellite Communications Design and Engineering Training course covers basic to advanced engineering level topics which are suitable for electrical, communications and wireless network technicians, engineers, analysts and managers including electrical engineers and technicians, communications engineers and technicians, systems engineers, and wireless network engineers and technicians and anyone else who is looking for a satellite communications design and engineering refresher course. All will find this essential course invaluable.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, the attendees will be able to:
- Explain the basics principles behind satellite technology and applications
- Discuss the key principles behind satellite communications technology
- Describe key features of satellite communications principles, analysis, design and engineering of communications subsystems and components
- Illustrate the functional architecture of satellite communications
- Summarize the basics of satellite communications design and engineering principles
- Discuss systems engineering principles and methods applied to satellite communications
- Compare different design tools, techniques, models and principles applied to satellite communications analysis, high and low level design, verification and validations and operations
- Explain the key satellite communication principles such as frequency spectrum, Methods of Modulation, carrier, sidebands, analog and digital modulation, AM, FM, PM, BPSK, QPSK, 8PSK FSK, QAM, coherent detection and carrier recovery, NRZ and RZ pulse shapes, power spectral density, ISI, Nyquist pulse shaping, raised cosine filtering, Bit Error Rate (BER) and Performance objectives, Eb/No, constellation diagrams, Coding, Shannon’s theorem, code rate, coding gain, methods of FEC coding, Hamming, BCH, and Reed-Solomon block codes, link budget design, antenna principles, antenna gain-to-noise-temperature (G/T) or satellite communications receiving system Figure of Merit
Course Topics
Introduction to Satellite Communications
- Satellite Technology Principles and Applications
- Early History of Satellite Communications
- Satellite Communications Design and Engineering 101
- Satellite Physical Architecture, Subsystems and Components
- Satellite Communications Subsystems
- Principles of Satellite Orbits: GEO, MEO, LEO and HEO
- Kepler’s Laws and Orbital Parameters
- Communications Design and Engineering applied to Geostationary Orbit (GEO), Low Earth Orbit (HEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO), Polar Orbit
- Basic Calculations on Satellite Range, Elevation Angle to Satellite, Azimuth Angle to Satellite
- Basic Communications Satellite System Segments, Subsystems and Components
- Satellite Communications Segments Design and Engineering
- Satellite Transponder, Antennas and other Communications Payload
- Satellite Ground Systems
- Satellite Link performance and Parameters
- Satellite Frequency Band Designations (ITU-T)
Satellite System Overview
- Space Segment
- Control Segment
- User Segment
- Communications Services
- Theory of Operation
- Satellite Signals
- Satellite Signal Modulation
- Receiver Operation
- Satellite Selection
- Satellite Signal Acquisition
- Down Conversion
- Degraded Operation and Aiding
- Program Management
- Communications System Development and Management
- Communication System Requirements, Planning, and Operations
- Service Coverage, Service Availability, And Service Reliability
- Service Coverage Characteristics
- Service Coverage Standards
- Expected Service Coverage Characteristics
- Service Availability Characteristics
- Service Availability Standards
- Satellite Outage Effects on Service Availability
- Expected Service Availability Characteristics
- Service Reliability Characteristics
- Service Reliability Standards
- Service Failure Characteristics
Satellite RF Link Design and Engineering
- Satellite Transmission Fundamentals
- Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP), Power Flux Density (PFD). Antenna Gain and Free-Space Path Loss
- Basic Link Equation
- Received Power and System Noise
- Satellite Noise Figure (NF) and Noise Temperature
- System Noise Temperature
- Satellite Figure of Merit G/T
- Modulation Principles
- Analog and Digital Modulation
- AM, FM, PM, BPSK, QPSK, 8PSK FSK, GMSK, QAM, and other higher order modulation
- Link Budget Design
- Antenna Principles
- Antenna Gain-to-Noise-Temperature (G/T)
- Satellite communications receiving system Figure of Merit
- Spectrum of a QPSK signal interfered by ambient white noise
- Communication Challenges
- Bandwidth and Signal Quality
- Energy per Bit (Eb)
- Noise Spectral Density (No)
- Energy per Bit to Noise Spectrum Density (Eb/No)
- Correlation: C/N, C/No and Eb/N0
- Carrier to Interference Ratio (C/I, CIR)
- Satellite Link Performance Parameters
- Satellite Carrier-to-Noise (C/N) Ratio and carrier-to-noise-density ratio(C/N0)
- Ratio of the relative power level to the noise level in the bandwidth of a system
- Energy-per-Bit (Eb/NO) to Noise Density
- Summary of Signal Measurement Environment and Ratios: S/N, C/N, C/No, C/I, Eb/No
- Shannon Limit, Error Correction, BER & Coding Schemes
- Analyzing Bit Error Rate (BER) and Performance Objectives
- Methods of FEC coding, Hamming, BCH, and Reed-Solomon block codes
Satellite Link System Performance
- Satellite Link Considerations
- Antenna: Size and Gain
- Fixed Antenna Gain Link
- Principles of Satellite Antennas
- Antenna Principles
- Directivity and Gain
- Antenna Patterns,
- Large apertures and phased-arrays
- Satellite Transponders
- Satellite communications payload
- Architecture and Design
- TWTA and SSPA
- Earth Stations Antenna types
- Downlink and Uplink Design and Engineering
- Single and Multiple Carrier Operation
- Satellite Transmission Impairments
- Propagation Mechanisms
- Absorption, Scattering, Refraction, Diffraction, Multipath, Scintillation, Fading and Frequency Dispersion
- Ionospheric Scintillation
- Group Delay and Dispersion
- Rain and Gaseous Attenuation
- Cloud and Fog Attenuation
- Depolarization
- Tropospheric Scintillation
- Propagation Effects Modeling and Prediction
- Rain Fade Mitigation
Satellite Engineering and Link System Performance
- Satellite Communications Signal Processing
- Satellite Multiple Access
- PCM/TDM/PSK/FDMA, TDMA, CDMA
- Mobile Satellite Principles (GMR)
- Spectrum Management in Satellite Communications
- Satellite Communications Capacity Planning
Satellite Communications Design and Engineering Case Studies
- Commercial Satellite Systems
- Navigation Satellites
- VSATs Applications Case Study
- VSAT Earth Station
- Indoor Unit (IDU) and Outdoor Unit (ODU)
- Radio Frequency Transceiver (RFT)
- Inter Facility Link (IFL)
- Processing and Control Equipment (PCE)
- Up-Converter (UC)
- Block up converter (BUC)
- High Power Amplifier (HPA)
- Low Noise Amplifier (LNA)
- Down Conversion (DC)
- Solid State Power Amplifier (SSPA)
- Orthomode Transducer (OMT)
- C, Ku and Ka band Operations
- Military Bands Operations
- Hub Traffic Terminal
- Network Management System (NMS)
- Network Control Computer (NCC)
- Military Reconnaissance Satellites (ISR)
- Military Satellite Systems
- MILSATCOM
- Military Satellite Communications Systems Wing (MCSW)
- Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF)
- Enhanced Polar SATCOM (EPS)
- Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS)
- Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT)
- Milstar
Satellite Communications Design and Engineering Training