Hector Fenech

High throughput satellite systems: An analytical approach

KA-SAT has represented a new generation of high throughput satellites (HTS) with the largest number of spots delivering a capacity of 90 Gbit/s for a wide variety of services ranging from internet access in homes to satellite news gathering and domestic broadcasting. HTS systems require a critical approach in terms of communication system requirements and payload analysis. This paper presents the typical system architecture of such systems and provides an analytical approach to elements that are required for the estimation of forward and return capacity, the key factor in these systems. These elements include the effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) and the gain over noise temperature (G/T) cumulative densities, the carrier-to-inference (C/I) estimations and the capacity assessment for the forward and return links.

Future High Throughput Satellite systems

KA-SAT represents the first of the current generation of High Throughput Satellites (HTS). With a total system capacity of over 70 Gbit/s and the capability of supporting up to a million users, it delivers services akin to those provided by the terrestrial ADSL2+. Whilst supporting services that include corporate networks and Satellite News Gathering (SNG), KA-SAT has primarily been designed for the consumer broadband market. In general, the consumer tends to be rather technology agnostic and the bench-mark is expected to remain the terrestrial services. This implies that as fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) becomes more prolific, it will become the yardstick for HTS systems. This is a daunting prospect for the satellite communication system architect since FTTH represents a bit rate approximately an order of magnitude more than that of ADSL2+ for about the same cost. This paper investigates three key areas: 1) The tradeoffs between power and spectrum in an HTS system and how spectrum is the dominant contributor; 2) Regulatory aspects in developing such systems; 3) How a top level forecast can be generated for HTS systems that can provide a significant increase in system capacity considering available spectrum, the enabling technologies and the scheduling.

High Throughput Satellites: An Analytical Approach

KA-SAT has represented a new generation of High Throughput Satellites (HTS) with the largest number of spots delivering a capacity of 90 Gb/s for a wide variety of services ranging from internet access in homes, to satellite news gathering and domestic broadcasting. HTS systems require a critical approach in terms of communication system requirements and payload analysis. This paper presents the typical system architecture of such systems and provides an analytical approach to elements that are required for the estimation of Forward and Return capacity, the key factor in these systems. These elements include the EIRP and G/T cumulative densities, the C/I estimations and the capacity assessment for the Forward and Return Links.

Eutelsat HTS systems

KA-SAT is the first of the second generation of high throughput satellite HTS systems. Constructed by Airbus, it was launched in 2010. It delivers over 90Gbps capacity over 82 spots in Ka-band over Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. It represents a complete infrastructure with the ground segment complement so as to deliver a suite of services including Internet access, broadcasting and satellite news gathering.

The Many Facets of Eutelsat’s HTS Missions

For the past decade Eutelsat has been at the forefront of the development of Ka-band, leading its application to different types of High Throughput Satellites (HTS) Systems in order to pursue the connection and integration of a global and digital society. Eutelsats most significant investment to date in the Ka-band is KA-SAT, the first and most powerful HTS System in Europe. In commercial service since 2011 it provides over 90 Gbit/s of capacity and offers services that range from consumer broadband access, to newsgathering and domestic broadcasting Relying on this experience Eutelsat is now pursuing its role in the reduction of the digital divide through Kaband High Throughput capability in other parts of the world, including Russia and Latin America. EUTELSAT 3B, launched in May 2014, includes an innovative and flexible Ka-band broadband payload, with five steerable spotbeams enabling mission reconfiguration in orbit. In collaboration with RSCC and to be launched in 2015, the EUTELSAT 36C/AMU1 satellite will embark a Kaband payload which has been designed to offer high-capacity broadband access service over Western Russian. Finally in 2016 EUTELSAT 65 West A will bring a flexible High Throughput payload for broadband access in the Ka-band over Latin America.

A novel dimensioning method for high throughput satellite design

This work describes a novel methodology for the dimensioning of a Ka-Band high throughput satellite (HTS) for broadband communications. The method is based on the optimization of performance for a forward link, as a function of a set of input criteria and a given envelope of available power. This approach is based on a spacecraft architecture using a multi-beam coverage implementing frequency re-use. Among the input criteria, we use the percentage of covered service area with a certain type of earth stations, the service availability and the cost and mass of the system. The proposed methodology is adaptable to any kind of service area. A digital video broadcasting satellite second generation (DVB-S2) air interface with adaptive coding and modulation (ACM) is used as a reference. The method, employing iterative advanced link budget calculations including carrier-to-interference at antenna level, provides the highest capacity given a batch of antenna and pragmatic feed design.

Triple Play over Satellite, Ka-Band Making the Difference

Over the last years a number of operators have been deploying satellite-based consumer internet access services to reduce the digital divide and capture the market of households not covered by ADSL, cable or wireless broadband. These operators are proposing a step change improvement in the economics of consumer service, with lower terminal costs, broadband access with monthly fees comparable to ADSL and an integrated technology simplifying the process of terminal installation, provisioning and management.

Ka-Band Satellite Consumer Triple-Play and Professional Video Services

This article presents Eutelsat European Ka-band implementation of the broadband ToowayTM service and its evolution through a dedicated Ka-band exclusive satellite (KA-SAT). It also explains Eutelsat’s choice in selecting the Ka-band for interactive services, broadcast video and IPTV services, demonstrating the optimal consumer service synergy between existing Ku-band and new Ka-band services.

Statistical characterization of the interference on the return link of a broadband satellite system

This work describes an interference study of the return link (user terminals to gateways) of a high throughput satellite (HTS) for broadband services. The aim is to identify a statistical behavior of the inter-spot interferences due to frequency re-use so as to estimate the carrier over interference ratio (C/I) on the uplink segment of the return link for a multi frequency time division multiple access (MF-TDMA) technique. The characterization of the interference will be done based on a mathematical model and validated through empirical observations for different transmission scenarios and satellite systems. In this work, we use the C/I performance at satellite antenna level as a benchmark parameter, in order to find the most faithful statistical law for the generated interferences. The satellite architecture itself uses a multi-beam coverage implementing frequency re-use and spatial separation.

A Novel Dimensioning Method For High Throughput Satellite Design

This work describes a novel methodology for the dimensioning of a Ka-Band high throughput satellite for broadband communications. The method is based on the optimization of performance for a forward link, as a function of a set of input criteria and a given envelope of available power. This approach is based on a spacecraft architecture using a multi-beam coverage implementing frequency re-use. Among the input criteria, we use the percentage of covered service area with a certain type of earth stations and the service availability. The proposed methodology is adaptable to any kind of service area. A DVB-S2 air interface with an Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) is used as a reference. The method, employing iterative advanced link budget calculations including carrier-to-interference at antenna level, provides the highest capacity given a batch of antenna and pragmatic feed design.