Sat Engg Lectures CLO-02

ELE-606
Satellite Engineering
Link Budget Design (CLO-02)
Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

SATELLITE LINK DESIGN
- DESIGN of satellite communication system is a complex process
- Comprises many factors to achieve best performance at an acceptable

cost
- Let us consider GEO systems first since they comprise majority of the
world’s traffic
2 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

ELE-606 Satellite Engineering
- Factors in satellite design
- Weight
- Driven by two factors
- Number of transponders and output power
- More the output power needed, greater the solar sails

required
- Weight of station-keeping fuel
- For 15 years satellite operation, upto half the weight of the

satellite may comprise fuel

- Other factors
- Choice of frequency band
- Atmospheric propagation effects
- Multiple Access Technique
- Rain attenuates radio signals
- Effect more severe on higher frequencies
- Significant above 10 GHz
- Attenuation increases roughly as square of frequency

- 30GHz wave suffers 4 times more att than 14GHz

- LEO and MEO have similar constraints as GEO but smaller area
- Much closer to Earth than GEO and produce stronger signals
- But continuously moving so Earth stations use low gain antennas
- Use multiple beam antenna so increase gain and to provide frequency

reuse
- Mobile satellite terminals must operate with low gain antennas and low
RF frequencies at mobile unit


- Communication links are designed to meet certain performance
objectives
- BER in digital and S/N in analog
- Measured in baseband channel
- Baseband signal is where an information carrying signal is

generated or received
- BER and S/N are determined by carrier-to-noise (C/N) at input to the

demodulator in the receiver
- C/N > 6 dB for BER or S/N to be achieved
- Digital links operating below C/N ratios of 10 dB must use error

correction to improve BER delivered to user

- C/N ratio is calculated at the input to the receiver
- RF noise received with the signal + noise generated at the receiver

= Equivalent noise power at the input of the receiver
- Noiseless receiver
- A receiver in which C/N ratio remains constant at all points in the

RF and IF chain
- C/N at the demodulator = C/N at the receiver input
- Overall C/N depends on both links i.e. uplink and downlink
- Both must achieve desired performance for specific %age of time
- Excessive rain may cause C/N to fall below min permitted value
causing outage especially when 30/20 GHz band is used.
- Designing a satellite system requires
- Required performance characteristics of uplink & downlink
- Propagation characteristics and rain attenuation of frequency

bands used at Earth stations
- Parameters of satellite and Earth stations
- Additional constraints imposed to conserve BW and avoid interference
- Some parameters may be estimated due to non-availability of info
- Lets set out the basic procedures for design of satellite links

Basic Transmission Theory
- Calculation of power received at the Earth station
- Two approaches to this calculation
- The use of flux density
- Link equation

- Isotropic Source
- A source radiating power uniformly in all directions
- At R meters from the source transmitting RF power Pt watts, flux

density across the sphere of radius R is given by
- Eq 4.1

- Gain G(θ)
- Ratio of power per unit solid angle radiated in direction θ to the

average power radiated per unit solid angle
- Eq 4.2
- Where
- P(θ) is the power radiated per unit solid angle by the antenna
- P0 is the total power radiated by the antenna
- G(θ) is the gain of the antenna at angle θ
- Boresight
- Direction in which max power is radiated by the antenna

- Gain G(θ) (Another Def.)
- Measure of increase in flux density radiated in the direction θ = 0º

(boresight) over that from an isotropic antenna radiating the same
total power
- If a lossless antenna has output power Pt and gain Gt, the flux density
in the direction of antenna boresight at distance r meters is given by
- Eq. 4.3
- The product PtGt is often called the Effective Isotropically Radiated

Power or EIRP

- Power collected by an ideal receiving antenna with an aperture area A

m2 is given by
- Eq 4.4

- Practical antenna with physical aperture area will not deliver power
given by eq 4.4
- Some energy is reflected away
- Absorbed by lossy components
- Diffracted by aperture edges
- The reduction in efficiency is described by effective aperture Ae

where,
- Eq 4.5
- And A is the aperture efficiency of the antenna
- A is 50 to 75% for parabolic antennas, lower for small antenna, higher

for large antennas

- Power received by a real antenna with a physical receiving area Ar and
effective aperture Ae m2 is
- Eq. 4.6
- Relationship between gain and area of an antenna are related by
- Eq 4.7
- Substituting for Ae in Eq 4.6 gives
- Eq 4.8
- Link Equation
- Link equation is essential in calculation of received power in any link
- The term is known as path loss, Lp
- Path loss in the sense of the way the energy spreads in space
- Collecting the various factors
- Eq 4.9
- If decibels are used
- Eq 4.10
- where

- Eq 4.10 represents ideal case (ideal antennas in empty space)
- In practice, atmospheric losses and losses at the transmitting and

receiving antenna need to be taken in to account
- Eq 4.10 would take the form
- Eq. 4.11
- Where
- La = losses in the atmosphere
- Lta = losses associated with transmitting antenna
- Lra = losses associated with receiving antenna

- Condition in Eq 4.11 are illustrated in fig 4.4

- Examples
- 4.2.1
- 4.2.2

Calculation of F and Pr

Calculation of F and Pr

- The received power Pr is commonly known as carrier power, C
- Satellites use
- frequency modulation for analog txn
- Phase modulation for digital txn
- So amplitude is not changed in modulation
- Carrier power C = Received power Pr

SYSTEM NOISE TEMPERATURE AND G/T
RATIO
- Noise Temperature
- Provides a way in determining how much thermal noise is

generated by the active and passive devices in the receiver
system
- At microwave frequencies, a black body with physical temperature, Tp

Kelvin, generates electrical noise over a wide bandwidth
- The noise power is given by
- Eq 4.12
- where

Noise Temperature
- In eq 4.12
- Pn is the available noise power in watts
- Delivered only to the load that is impedance matched to the noise

source
- kTp is the noise power spectral density
- constant on all frequencies up to 300GHz

Noise Temperature
- Satellite communications deal with weak signals
- Because of large distances involved
- Must make the noise level as low as possible to meet C/N requirements
- Make BW in the receiver large enough at IF stages
- To allow signals (carrier & side bands) to pass unrestricted
- Keeping noise power to the minimum value possible
- Use noise bandwidth Bn
- If Bn is not known, 3 dB BW can be used with small errors
- Typical noise temperatures
- 30 K (GaAsFET Amp at 4 GHz) to 150 K (LNA at 20 GHz)

Noise Temperature
- To determine the performance of the receiving system
- we need to find the thermal noise power against which the signal
must be demodulated
- Determine system noise temperature, Ts
- Ts is
- the noise temperature of noise source,
- placed at the input of noiseless receiver,
- Which gives the same noise power as the original receiver
- If overall end-to-end gain in Grx, and its narrowest BW is Bn , the noise

power at the demodulator input is
- Eq 4.13 a
- The noise power referred to the input is Pn where
- Eq 4.13 b
Noise Temperature
- Let the antenna deliver a signal power Pr to the receiver RF input
- Signal power at the demodulator input will be PrGrx
- Carrier-to-noise ratio at the demodulator is given by
- Eq. 4.14
- Gain cancels out in Eq. 4.14
- C/N can be calculated at the antenna output port
- Link budget will find Pr at this point
- All the sources of noise at the receiver end are thus replaced by a
single term, Ts

Calculation of Noise Temperature
- Fig 4.5 shows simplified conversion from RF input to IF output
- All radio receivers are superheterodyne or superhet
- Components of a superhet receiver
- Front end (RF amp (LNA), mixer, local oscillator)
- IF amp (IP amp and filters)
- Demodulator and baseband section

Double Superhet Receiver

- Fig 4.7a shows equivalent circuit of receiver for noise analysis
- Noisy devices replaced by equivalent noiseless blocks
- Noise generators at the input to each block such that block produces
the same noise at output as the device it replaces
- Entire receiver is then reduced to a single block with the same end-to-
end gain and single noise source at input with temperature Tin
- The power at the output of the IF amp of receiver in fig 4.7 a is given
by
- Pn = [( TRF + Tin ) GRF + Tm ) Gm + TIF ) GIF ] kBn
- Eq 4.15
- GRF, Gm, GIF are gains of RF amp, mixer and IF amp

- TRF, Tm, TIF are equivalent noise temperatures
- Rewriting Eq. 4.15
- Eq 4.16

- The single noise source shown in fig 4.7 b above with noise
temperature Ts generates the same noise power Pn at its output if
Eq 4.17
- Noise power at output of both receivers fig 4.7a and fig 4.7b is same if
- Equivalent noise source in fig 4.7b has system noise temperature Ts

where
- Eq 4.18
- Succeeding stages of receiver add less and less noise to the total
system noise temperature
- Noise contributed by the IF amplifier and later stages can be ignored if

RF amp in he receiver front end has a high gain
- System noise temperature is thus

- Fig 4.7 b assumes that all noise comes in from the antenna or
generated in the receiver
- A different model is used to account for lossy medium

- Rain losses and waveguide losses
- Noise source is placed at the output of the lossy atmosphere, that is

the antenna aperture (Fig 4.7c)
- The equivalent output noise source produces noise temperature Tno

given by
- Eq 4.19
- Where Gl is the linear gain of lossy device or medium and Tp is the

physical temperature in Kelvin of the device or medium
- For attenuation of A dB Value of Gl is given by Eq 4.20

- Examples
- 4.3.1
- 4.3.2



Noise Figure and Noise Temperature
- Noise is frequently used to specify the noise generated within a device
- The operational noise figure (NF) is given by
- Eq 4.21
- Useful to convert NF to noise temperature, Td since it is more often

used
- The relationship is
- Eq 4.22
- Where
- NF is linear ratio, not in dB

- To is the reference temperature – usually 290 K
- Example
- 4.3.3


G/T Ratio for Earth Stations
- The link equation can be written in terms of (C/N) at the Earth station
- Eq 4.23
- C / N ∝ Gr / Ts
- Rest of the terms are constant for any satellite system
- The ratio Gr / Ts, or simply G / T (dB / K) specifies the quality of a

receiving Earth station or a satellite receiving system
- Increasing Gr / Ts would increase C / N ratio
- Examples
- 4.3.4

G/T Ratio for Earth Stations

DESIGN OF DOWNLINKS
- Objectives of Design of satellite communication
- Meeting a min C/N ratio for specific %age of time

- Carrying maximum revenue earning traffic at min cost
- “An engineer is a person who can do for a dollar what any fool can do
for one hundred dollars”
- Aim is to reach the best compromise of system parameters that meets

the specifications at the lowest cost
- A satellite link designed to overcome 20 dB rain fade rather than a 3

dB fade will need 7 times the diameter required

DESIGN OF DOWNLINKS
- Rain attenuation affects all satellite links
- Less on 6/4 GHz, critical on 14/11 GHz and very critical on 30/20 GHz
- Link reliability of 99.5 to 99.99% is to be achieved, average over a long

time (normally a year) (outage occurs for 0.01 to 0.5% of the time)
- Outage
- Time period during which the C/N ratio falls below min limits

DESIGN OF DOWNLINKS
- C-band links rain attenuation seldom exceeds 1 or 2 dB
- 99.99% reliability can be achieved
- .01% make 52 min in a year
- Outage can be of many hours in one year and none in the next
- Ka-bands can never achieve 99.99%
- Rain attenuation exceeds 10 dB, goes up to 20 dB
- 0.1 to 0.5% make 8 to 40 hrs a year
- C/ Ku bands for real time telephony applications where Ka bands are

used for internet traffic where effect of short outages is less perceived

Link Budgets
- Ease the calculation of C/N ratio
- Link budget is a tabular method for evaluating the received power and
noise power in a radio link
- Link budgets use dB units
- Once a link budget is established, it is easier to change the parameters

and recalculate the result
- Link budget must be calculated for an individual transponder
- Must be repeated for separate links
- In two-way satellite communication, link budgets for four links will be

made
- C/N for single link and complete satellite system will be calculated
Link Budgets
- Calculated for the worst case
- Factors contributing to the worst case scenario are
- Earth station located at the edge of the satellite coverage zone
- Received signal is 3 dB lower
- Maximum path length from satellite to Earth station
- Low elevation angle at the Earth station
- If antenna doesn’t point toward Earth station, loss factor is

included in link budget

Link Budgets
- Calculation of C/N ratio is based on two equations
- Received Power
- Eq 4.24
- Received system noise power
- Eq 4.25
- In dB units
- Eq 4.26
- Where
- k is Boltzmann’s constant (-228.6 dBW/K/Hz)
- Ts is the system noise temperature in dBK
- Bn is the noise BW of the receiver in dBHz

Link Budget Example: C-Band Downlink for
Earth Coverage Beam

Earth Coverage Beam

Earth Coverage Beam

Earth Coverage Beam
- Parameters explained from the table 4.4 a and b
- C/N ratio in rain needs more margin over minimum permissible value of
C/N in clear air
- E.g. min permissible C/N is 9.5

- We get C/N clear air of 16 dB and C/N in rain of 12.7dB
- 12.7-9.5 = 3.2 dB
- We don’t use all margin for rain
- Rather use some of that to reduce the antenna size
- The remaining link margin of 1.2 dB (1.32) is used to reduce the size of
the Earth station antenna
- Antenna gain is proportional to diameter squared

- √1.32 = 1.15
- So diameter can be reduced by 1.2 m
- So new antenna size is 9-1.2 = 7.8m
SATELLITE SYSTEMS USING SMALL
EARTH STATIONS
- Some satellites carry
- one or two telephone or data channels OR
- A DBS-TV channel
- Use small , low cost Earth stations
- Only two parameters need to be adjusted at the satellite to allow an

Earth station with a small antenna
- Satellite transmitted power
- Satellite antenna beamwidth
- As frequency in increased, the diameter of the spacecraft antenna in

wavelengths is increased for a given receiving dish diameter
- A single antenna must cover the whole region that it serves

- Multiple beam antennas are an exception

EARTH STATIONS
- Problem of providing service to CONUS (48 contiguous states of US)
- The figures used are typical of US domestic satellite systems
- Satellite position is around 100ºW
- 3 dB beamwidth of 6º by 3º covers the area
- Antenna dimensions of 13λ by 26λ
- Gain 32dB (Receiver at the edge would get 29 dB)
- Diameter of Earth station is 3m
- Transponder of 5W at 4GHz used
- Antenna Gain of 40 dB

EARTH STATIONS
- Fig 4.8

EARTH STATIONS
- Received power for system with antenna gain of 40 dB
- Eq 4.27
- Noise power with noise BW of 30MHz and system noise temperature of

100K is
- Eq 4.28
- C/N = 13.3 dB
- 3.8 dB above FM threshold of 9.5 dB
- Provides an adequate margin for an operational system

Direct Broadcast TV
- Originally started in Europe in 1980s using analog FM in Ku band
- Successful due to slower introduction of cable TV in Europe
- US allocated 12.2-12.7GHz exclusively to DBS-TV services in 1990
- Hughes and Echostar were successful companies providing this

service
- DBS-TV satellites are large and heavy
- Three-axis spin stabilized

- Can carry 16 transponders
- Deliver 2.6kW of power
- Have large areas of solar sails
- Typical mass 6800kg at launch

Direct Broadcast TV

Direct Broadcast TV

Direct Broadcast TV
- Relation for total path attenuation, A in dB
- Sum of clear path attenuation due to atmospheric gas absorption, Aca,
and rain attenuation Arain
- Eq 4.29
- Sky noise temperature resulting from a path attenuation of Atotal dB

(Assumed medium temperature for rain 270 K)
- Eq 4.30
- Antenna noise temperature can be calculated as

- (c is 90-95%) Eq 4.31
- (c = Coupling coefficient)
- System noise temperature with high gain antenna as first element is

- Eq 4.32
- (Assuming no waveguide or coaxial cable between feed horn and LNA)

Direct Broadcast TV
- Increase in noise power Nrain dB, caused by increase in sky noise
temperature is
- Eq 4.33
- Where Tsca is the system noise temperature in clear sky conditions
- The value of carrier power in rain is given by
- Eq 4.34
- Resulting (C/N)dn rain when rain intersects the downlink is
- Eq 4.35
- Example 4.5.1

UPLINK DESIGN
- Easier than downlink in many cases
- Specified carrier power must be presented at the satellite

transponder
- Much higher power stations are used at the Earth stations
- VSAT and satellite telephone handsets are an exception
- Transmitters are costlier than the receiving equipment
- One high power transmit Earth station can provide service via
DBS-TV to many low-cost receive-only stations
- Satellite transponder is a quasilinear amplifier
- Output backoff of 1-3 dB is required to avoid intermodulation

products
- For large number of receiving Earth stations , 5-7 dB output
backoff may be required
UPLINK DESIGN
- Earth station txr power is set by the specific power level OR specific
flux density required at the input of the transponder
- At C-band, a typical uplink earth station transmits 100W with a 9m

antenna, giving a flux at the satellite of -100W/m2
- Calculation of power level at the transponder input is required so

that C/N ratio can be found
- Link equation will use either specified transponder C/N ratio ot

specified transponder output power level
- When C/N ratio specified for transponder, Pr, is straight forward
- Noise power is calculated as
- Eq. 4.36
- Txp is the transponder system noise temperature and Bn (BW of BPF
of IF stage of Earth Station Receiver) is in units of dBHz
- 64 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat
UPLINK DESIGN
- Power received at the input of the transponder Prxp
- Eq. 4.37
- PtGt is the EIRP, Gr is the satellite antenna gain

- Lp is the uplink path loss, Lup are all losses other than Lp
- Value of (C/N)up at LNA input of the satellite receiver is given by
- Eq. 4.38
- Pt can be calculated from
- Where C/N comes from eq 4.38 and Nxp comes from eq. 4.36
- Received power at the transponder input is given by
- Eq. 4.39
UPLINK DESIGN
- Earth station transmitter output power Pt can also be calculated by
- Eq. 4.40
- Where Psat is the saturated power output of transponder in dBW,

- BO0 is the output backoff in dB, Gxp is the gain of transponder (dB)
- Example 4.6.1

Uplink Design Example

Design For Specified C/N: Combining C/N
And C/I Values in Satellite Links
- Considering multiple noise sources contributing to noise in the earth
station IF amplifier
- Noise from the receiver itself
- Receiving antenna
- Sky noise
- Adjacent satellites and terrestrial transmitters
- For multiple C/N ratios, we need to calculate overall C/N by
- Eq. 4.42
- C/N values must be linear ratios
- Eq. 4.43
- Eq. 4.44
- Example 4.7.1

Determine (C/N)0 from various (C/N)s

SYSTEM DESIGN EXAMPLES
- System Design Example 4.8.1
- System Design Example 4.8.2
- VSAT System Design Example 9.1

System Design Example 8.1



Uplink Design

Uplink Design

Uplink Design

Downlink Design

Downlink Design

Downlink Design

Downlink Design


- This is an example of Personal Communication System using Low
Earth Orbit Satellites
- Links in this system can be classified as follows:
- Inbound Link: Mobile to Gateway

- Uplink
- Mobile Terminal to Satellite
- Downlink
- Satellite to Gateway
- Outbound Link: Gateway to Mobile

- Uplink
- Gateway to Satellite
- Downlink
- Satellite to Mobile


Inbound Link: Mobile to Gateway
- Uplink: Mobile Terminal to Satellite

Inbound - Uplink

Inbound - Downlink
- Downlink: Satellite to Gateway

Inbound (C/N)0

Outbound Link: Gateway to Mobile
- Uplink: Gateway to Satellite

Outbound - Downlink
- Downlink: Satellite to Mobile Terminal


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ELE-606

Link Budget Design (CLO-02)

Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- Comprises many factors to achieve best performance at an acceptable

2 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- Driven by two factors

- Number of transponders and output power

- More the output power needed, greater the solar sails

- Weight of station-keeping fuel

- For 15 years satellite operation, upto half the weight of the

3 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- Choice of frequency band

- Atmospheric propagation effects

- Multiple Access Technique

- Rain attenuates radio signals

- Effect more severe on higher frequencies

- Significant above 10 GHz

- Attenuation increases roughly as square of frequency

4 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- Much closer to Earth than GEO and produce stronger signals

- But continuously moving so Earth stations use low gain antennas

- Use multiple beam antenna so increase gain and to provide frequency

5 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

6 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- BER in digital and S/N in analog

- Measured in baseband channel

- Baseband signal is where an information carrying signal is

- BER and S/N are determined by carrier-to-noise (C/N) at input to the

- C/N > 6 dB for BER or S/N to be achieved

- Digital links operating below C/N ratios of 10 dB must use error

7 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- RF noise received with the signal + noise generated at the receiver

- A receiver in which C/N ratio remains constant at all points in the

- C/N at the demodulator = C/N at the receiver input

- Overall C/N depends on both links i.e. uplink and downlink

- Both must achieve desired performance for specific %age of time

- Required performance characteristics of uplink & downlink

- Propagation characteristics and rain attenuation of frequency

- Parameters of satellite and Earth stations

- Additional constraints imposed to conserve BW and avoid interference

- Some parameters may be estimated due to non-availability of info

9 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- Two approaches to this calculation

- The use of flux density

10 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- A source radiating power uniformly in all directions

- At R meters from the source transmitting RF power Pt watts, flux

11 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- Ratio of power per unit solid angle radiated in direction θ to the

- P0 is the total power radiated by the antenna

- G(θ) is the gain of the antenna at angle θ

- Direction in which max power is radiated by the antenna

- Measure of increase in flux density radiated in the direction θ = 0º

- The product PtGt is often called the Effective Isotropically Radiated

13 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- Power collected by an ideal receiving antenna with an aperture area A

14 Engr. Taufeeq Liaquat

- Some energy is reflected away

- Absorbed by lossy components

- Diffracted by aperture edges

- The reduction in efficiency is described by effective aperture Ae

- And A is the aperture efficiency of the antenna

- A is 50 to 75% for parabolic antennas, lower for small antenna, higher