The continuous increase of the demand for high data rate satellite services has triggered the development of new high-end satellite modems, which are capable of supporting a bandwidth of up to 500 MHz. For commercial application, the downlink from low Earth orbit (LEO) sensors and observation satellites is of a special interest. Such satellites should be capable of recording gigabytes of data and transferring it to the ground stations within a few minutes since the satellite is only visible for a short time at such low altitudes. This implies a very fast and reliable information processing at the terminal. For this, it would be beneficial to utilize the entire 1500 MHz spectrum of the extended Ka-band. In this context, the design of the modem architecture is very challenging. This problem is addressed in this chapter for the first time. We develop a new terminal modem architecture, which is expected to support a data rate in the range between 25 Msps and 1400 Msps. Through this, the receiver can easily adapt to changes in the data rate according to the traffic requirements. Furthermore, a simulator tool is developed, which is used for a numerical performance evaluation of the individual components and the whole system.

Chapter Contents:

• 14.1 Introduction
• 14.2 System model
• 14.2.1 Challenges and impairments
• 14.2.2 Requirements
• 14.3 Modem design
• 14.3.1 Architecture
• 14.3.2 Timing synchronization
• 14.3.3 Frequency synchronization
• 14.3.4 Frame synchronization
• 14.3.5 Equalization
• 14.3.6 Demodulation and decoding
• 14.4 Numerical results
• 14.5 Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• References

Inspec keywords: artificial satellites; modems; multimedia communication; satellite communication

Other keywords: low altitudes; high data rate satellite services; ground stations; 25 Msps; entire 1500 MHz spectrum; reliable information processing; terminal modem architecture; frequency 1500.0 MHz; extended Ka-band; observation satellites; 1400 Msps; high throughput satellites; fast information processing; high-end satellite modems; user terminal; frequency 500.0 MHz

Subjects: Multimedia communications; Satellite communication systems; Modems