Sonya Amos

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.