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A CRÍTICA DE ANÁLISE
DO SATÉLITE DE COMUNICAÇÃO
(COMSAT)
enviado por
AKM Sayedur Rahman (ITE-1002)
Dept.. de ITE
Universidade Darul Ihsan
Supervisionado por
Professor Dr. M. Abdus Samad
2
Certificado
Supervisor Assinatura:
Abdus Samad
........................................
Comunicação:
A comunicação pode ser definida como a troca de informações de qualquer
natureza, por qualquer meio de um local para outro local e o sistema
envolvido para atingir esse objetivo é conhecido sistema de comunicação.
Comunicação começou com telegrafia fio em 1840, desenvolvendo com a
telefonia algum década mais tarde e rádio no início do século dezenove. O
rápido avanço do campo eletrônico, o uso de satélite e fibra óptica tem feito
comunicações mais generalizada com uma ênfase crescente no computador e
outras comunicações de dados.
O conteúdo:
v) orbitais Perturbations
vi) Orbit inclinados
vii) média local e tempo solar e Sun
Capítulo 3: diversos sistemas via satélite
Eu) O geostacionária Orbit- GEO
ii) Meio Terra Orbit- MEO
iii) Low Earth Orbit- LEO
Capítulo-4: Microondas Comunicação
Capítulo 5: Antenas
Capítulo 6: Segmentos de Comunicação por Satélite
i. O segmento espacial
ii. O Segmento de terra
iii. Segmento de Veículo de Lançamento
Capítulo-7: Acesso satélite
Capítulo-8: Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS)
Capítulo-9: Sistema de Posicionamento Global
Capítulo-10: Satélite Móvel e serviços especializados
Capítulo-11: Resultados da Tese
7
i) A Invenção:
De acordo com a Wikipedia on-line, COMUNICAÇÕES VIA SATÉLITE
(Também conhecido como COMSAT) é definido como “um satélite artificial
estacionados no espaço para fins de telecomunicações que utilizam rádio em freqüências
de microondas. A maioria dos satélites de comunicações usam órbitas geosynchronous ou
órbitas quase-geoestacionários, embora alguns sistemas recentes usam baixas satélites em
órbita da Terra. Os satélites de comunicações proporcionar uma tecnologia que é
complementar à de cabos de comunicação de fibra óptica submarino. O conceito do
satélite de comunicações foi proposta pela primeira vez por Arthur C. Clarke, com base
no trabalho pseudônimo de Herman Potočnik de 1929. Em 1945, Clarke publicou um
artigo intitulado "Relays extra-terrestres" na revista Wireless World. O artigo descrito nos
fundamentos atrás dos satélites artificiais de implantação em órbita geoestacionária para
o propósito de retransmissão de sinais de rádio.
8
ii) Fundo:
Segundo o site da NASA Sede
(http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/satcomhistory.html), David J.
Whalen relata a lista cronológica da seguinte forma:
Fato aleatório:
Durante um teste da implantação eco em 1962, que foi de três anos após a
implantação primeira falha de Shotput do eco satelloon, um problema de carga estrutural
causado o balão mais uma vez para explodir. Uma câmera a bordo do lançador capturou
estas imagens. O fracasso Shotput anteriormente teria olhado muito o mesmo.
eco I
15
Por favor, note que as seguintes imagens são da Aeronáutica e Astronáutica no site da
Universidade de Washington.
O progresso…
16
Telstar foi o primeiro satélite de comunicações ativas. Pertencente a AT & T como parte
de aa acordos multi-nacionais entre AT & T, Bell Telephone Laboratories, a Nasa, os
britânicos General Post Office, eo PTT Nacional francesa (Post Office.) Para desenvolver
a comunicação por satélite. Ele foi lançado pela NASA de Cabo Canaveral em 10 de
Julho de 1962, o lançamento do espaço primeiro patrocínio privado. Telstar foi colocado
numa
17
órbita elíptica (completado uma vez a cada 2 horas and37 minuto), velocidade de rotação
de um ângulo de 45 graus acima do equador.
O sucesso…
foram lançados 3 Syncoms diferentes. Em seguida, ele foi seguido pelo Applications
programa Satellite Technology com seis satélites diferentes até agora. Houve também a
Communications Satellite Technology eo último satélite relatado no site da NASA é a
avançada Communications Satellite Technology (ACTS) com o reforço Transferência
Orbit Stage (TOS), que foi lançado no dia 12 de setembro de 1993.
Mobilidade:
Satélites favorecem aplicações que exigem mobilidade, enquanto redes
de fibra são limitadas neste sentido.
Transmissão:
Satellite oferece a capacidade de fácil transmissão de mensagem para
um número muito grande de estações terrestres. Isto é mais fácil de
implementar transmissão em uma rede com fio.
ambientes hostis:
Satélite pode facilmente dar cobertura a áreas onde a instalação de fios
ou é muito difícil ou custa muito, como é o caso da prestação de serviços de
telefonia na Indonésia, onde a fiação do grande número de ilha era
impraticável e, portanto, um satélite dedicado serve comunicações telefónicas
domésticas.
Desenvolvimento rápido:
Usando satélites, uma rede pode ser implementada muito mais
rapidamente do que um baseado em fio. Isto é muito importante em situações
de desastre de aplicações militares.
freqüência diferente que a do downlink. Além disso, pode existir mais do que
um canal de ligação ascendente. Assim, por satélite geralmente contêm muitas
transponders, cada um dos quais contém antenas e circuitos de receptor para
escutar a mais do que um canal de ligao ascendente ao mesmo tempo.
sistemas de comunicação por satélite têm uma série de características que os
diferenciam de ambos os tipos com fio e outros de ligações sem fios. Estas
características estão brevemente resumidas abaixo:
Ampla cobertura:
Devido às altas altitudes utilizadas por satélites, suas transmissões pode ser
pego de uma grande área de superfície da Terra. A área de cobertura de um
satélite é conhecido como a sua pegada.
Ruído:
Sabe-se que a força de um sinal de rádio reduz proporcionalmente ao
quadrado da distância entre o transmissor e o receptor. Assim, as grandes
distâncias entre a SEE e o satélite faz com que o sinal recebido de forma
muito fraca, tipicamente da ordem de algumas centenas de picowatts.
Empregando FEC e técnicas ARQ normalmente combate a este problema.
. V Aplicação de satélite:
Telefonia:
O primeiro e mais importante historicamente pedido de satélites de
comunicação foi em telefonia de longa distância intercontinental. O
Público Fixo Comutado telefonemas Telephone Network relés de
telefones fixos para uma estação terrestre, onde eles são então
transmitidos para um satélite geoestacionário. A ligação descendente
segue um caminho análogo. Melhorias em cabos de comunicações
submarinos causou um declínio no uso de satélites para a telefonia fixa
no final do século 20, mas ainda servem ilhas remotas como a Ilha de
Ascensão e Santa Helena, onde há cabo submarino está em serviço.
telefones por satélite conectar diretamente a uma constelação de satélites
de órbita Terra geoestacionários ou baixas. As chamadas são
encaminhadas para um teleporte conectado à rede PSTN ou outro
telefone por satélite.
rádio amador:
operadores de rádio amador ter acesso aos satélites OSCAR que
foram projetados especificamente para realizar o controle de rádio
amador. A maioria de tais satélites funcionam como espaço suportados
repetidores, e geralmente são acessados por amadores equipados com
UHF ou equipamento de rádio VHF e antenas altamente direcionais,
como Yagis ou antenas parabólicas. Devido às limitações do
equipamento amador baseado em terra, a maioria dos satélites amadores
são lançados em órbitas bastante baixa da Terra, e são projetados para
lidar com apenas um número limitado de contatos breves, em
determinado momento. Alguns satélites também fornecem serviços de
encaminhamento de dados usando o AX.25 ou protocolos similares.
usos militares
satélites de comunicações são usados para aplicações de
comunicações militares, como a Global Command and Control Systems.
25
eixo maior
26
b menor Axis
Centro de Ellipse
aa
Figura: A focos F1 e F2, o eixo maior semi um, e o eixo menor semi b de uma
elipse
A excentricidade e o semieixo menor são dois dos parâmetros
especificados orbitais para satélite (sonda) que orbitam a terra.
Para uma órbita elíptica, 0 <e <1, quando e = 0, a órbita circular torna-
se.
Uma consequência importante desta que o satélite leva mais tempo para
percorrer uma determinada distância quando é mais longe forma terra.
Utilizam-se esta propriedade para aumentar o comprimento de tempo
27
Apogeu:
As órbitas mais distantes ponto da terra.
Perigeu:
O ponto de maior aproximação à Terra.
Linha de APSIDE:
A linha que une o perigeu e apogeu através do centro da terra.
Ascendente nó:
O ponto onde a órbita cruza o plano equatorial vai do sul ao norte.
Descendente nó:
O ponto onde a órbita cruza o plano equatorial vai de norte a sul.
Linha de nós:
A linha que une o ascendente e descendente nós através do centro da
terra.
Inclinação:
O ângulo entre o plano orbital e o plano equatorial da Terra. Ele é
medido no nó ascendente a partir do equador para a órbita, indo de leste
a norte.
Prograde órbita:
Uma órbita em que o satélite se move na mesma direção que a rotação
da Terra. A órbita prograde também é conhecido como uma órbita
directa. A inclinação de uma órbita prograde mentiras entre 00 e 900. A
maioria dos satélites são lançados numa órbita prograde porque a
velocidade de rotação da terra fornece parte da velocidade orbital com
uma consequente economia de energia lançada.
29
órbita retrógrada:
Uma órbita em que o satélite se move numa direcção oposta à rotação da
Terra. A inclinação de uma órbita retrógrada sempre situa-se entre 900 e
1800.
Argumento de perigeu:
O nó ascendente forma ângulo para perigeu, medido no plano orbital no
centro da Terra, na direção de movimento de satélite.
Significa anomalia:
Significativo anomalia H dá um valor médio da posição angular do
satélite com referência à perigeo. Para uma órbita circular, M dá a
posição angular do satélite em órbita. Para órbita elíptica, a posição é
muito mais difícil de calcular, e M é usado como um passo intermédio
no cálculo.
A verdadeira anomalia:
A verdadeira anomalia é o ângulo de perigeu a posição do satélite,
medida no centro da Terra. Isto dá a posição angular verdadeira do
satélite na órbita como uma função do tempo.
Estas órbitas não são úteis para lugares nas regiões polares, porque há uma
limitação visibilidade. Nesta altura, a área de cobertura é limitada a menos de
80% dos países com excepção da superfície da terra deitado nas regiões
polares. Um satélite geoestacionário tem um período de órbita de 24 horas.
Assim, um satélite em órbita este aparece imóvel para uma estação de terra, o
qual pode receber-o com uma antena estacionária, isto é, aparecendo desse
modo estacionário a um observador terrestre ligada.
Para qualquer órbita geoestacionária a ser, ele deve primeiro ser
geoestacionária. Uma órbita geoestacionária é qualquer órbita, que tem um
período igual ao período de rotação da terra. Como veremos em breve, este
requisito não é suficiente para garantir uma posição fixa em relação à Terra.
Embora todas as órbitas geoestacionárias deve ser geoestacionária, nem todas
as órbitas geoestacionária são geoestacionária. Infelizmente, esses termos são
freqüentemente usados alternadamente.
Antes de continuar, é necessário esclarecer o que se entende por "período de
rotação da Terra." Para a maioria de cronometragem, consideramos rotação da
terra a ser medido em relação à posição do sol (média). No entanto, uma vez
que o sol se move em relação às estrelas (espaço inercial) como resultado da
órbita da Terra, um dia solar médio não é o período de rotação que estamos
interessados em um satélite geoestacionário completa uma órbita em torno da
Terra ao mesmo tempo que leva a terra para fazer uma rotação no espaço
inercial (ou fixo). Este período de tempo é conhecido como um dia sideral e é
equivalente a 23h56m04s de tempo solar médio. Sem quaisquer outras
influências, a terra será orientada da mesma forma no espaço inercial cada vez
que um satélite com este período de retorno para um determinado ponto em
sua órbita.
Para garantir que um satélite permanece ao longo de um determinado ponto na
superfície da Terra, a órbita também deve ser circular e ter zero de inclinação.
A Figura 2 mostra a diferença entre uma órbita geoestacionária (GSO) e uma
órbita geoestacionária (GEO) com uma inclinação de 20 graus. Ambos são
órbitas circulares. Enquanto cada satélite irá completar sua órbita ao mesmo
tempo que a Terra leva para girar uma vez, deve ser óbvio que o satélite
geoestacionário vai mudar para o norte e sul do equador.
33
pólo
Satélite
satélites LEO têm órbitas polares. Satélites que orbitam a seguir uma
altitude de cerca de 1000 km (entre 500 km - 2000 km), com um período de
rotação de 90 a 120 minutos, é chamado Low Earth Orbit satélites. Satélites
em tais alturas baixas são úteis para a comunicação móvel, mas uma série de
tais satélites são necessários para a comunicação contínua entre um usuário e
por satélite. A altura de ser baixa, a potência de transmissor é pequeno e
necessária mão trans-receptores podem ser usados. No entanto, a principal
desvantagem em tais órbitas é que a vida do satélite é limitado por causa da
exigência de combustível. O satélite tem uma velocidade de 20.000 a 25.000
km / h. Um sistema LEO normalmente tem um tipo celular de acesso,
semelhante ao sistema de telefonia celular. A pegada normalmente tem um
diâmetro de 8000 km. Porque satélites LEO estão perto da Terra,
Um grupo de satélites LEO é conhecido como “constelação”. Para
estabelecer uma conexão, deve-se obter o acesso a um destes satélites até um
acesso de ganho para um site de celular nas proximidades, no caso de
telefone celular. Quando que move satélite fora da faixa, ela é entregue a
outro satélite, que entrou em vista. Durante uma longa conversa, este
processo pode demorar lugar muitas vezes. LEOs estão sendo promovidos
para funções tão diversas como a paginação em todo o mundo com aviso, o
serviço de telefone em todo o mundo handheld e carga de rastreamento (com
o caminhão enviando-se um fluxo contínuo de dentro sobre seu paradeiro). A
principal vantagem de LEOs é que o terminal de transmissão - a única na
Terra - não tem que ser muito poderoso, porque o satélite LEO é muito mais
perto do que os satélites geoestacionários tradicionais.
Um sistema de LEO é feito de uma constelação de satélites que o
trabalho em conjunto, como rede, cada satélite age como um interruptor.
Satélites que estão perto um do outro são conectados através de ligação inter-
satélite (ISLs). Um sistema móvel comunica com o satélite através de uma
ligação móvel de usuário (UML). Um satélite também pode se comunicar
com uma estação terrestre (gateway) através de um link gateway (GWL).
Uma forma simplificada de rede de satélites LEO é mostrado na figura.
39
Figura: A constelação GPS chama durante 24 satélites a ser distribuído igualmente entre os seis
planos orbitais circulares
pequenos LEOs
Pequenos LEOs são um pequeno, de baixo custo, classe de satélites peso
compreendido entre 50 e 100 kg. Eles foram alocados as bandas de 137-
138MHz e 400.15-401MHz para o espaço-Terra down-links, e 148-149.9MHz
para a Terra-espaço up-links.
42
Estas bandas têm sido usados por satélite meteorológico, pesquisa espacial, e
serviços móveis e fixos.
Eles vão agora também pode ser compartilhado por pequenos sistemas LEO
para uso com dados em comunicações lentas, paginação, store-and-forward, e
serviços de mensagens. Pequenas LEOs excluir os serviços de voz. Estes
sistemas são uma ordem de magnitude mais barato e não parecem transportar
os riscos tecnológicos e comerciais de grandes LEOs.
propostas Leo pequeno incluem ORBCOMM, Starsys, e VITA entre outros.
Voluntários em Ajuda Técnica, VITA, é um sem fins lucrativos organização
privada com o objetivo de melhorar o ambiente, a saúde, a educação nos
países em desenvolvimento. Em janeiro de 1992, VITA foi o primeiro a ser
concedido o estatuto de 'preferência pioneiro' para sua proposta LEO pela
Federal Communications Commission, FCC.
Big LEOs
sistemas Big LEO, com satélites na classe 350-500 quilo, são destinados a
comunicação de dados e voz em tempo real em unidades portáteis.
No WARC-92 os EUA propuseram uma nova alocação de espectro entre 1610
e 1626.5MHz usado atualmente por serviços de radionavegação aeronáutica
ea determinação Radio Satellite Service, RDSS na Europa.
Big LEOs pode transportar serviços de voz e dados em alta velocidade, ao
contrário de pequenos LEO. Além disso, grandes LEOs usará novos, ainda
não experimentadas, tecnologias na forma de processamento on-board e
backbone ligação inter-satélite em (30GHz) frequências milimétricas
tornando-os uma tecnologia muito mais arriscado.
propostas Big LEO até agora têm sido apresentadas por seis empresas: Iridium
(66 satélites), um consórcio compreendendo Motorola, Lockheed, BAe,
Deutsche Aerospace, e Matra-Marconi; Globalstar (48) satélites, Loral
compreendendo sistemas de espaço, Qualcomm, Alcatel, e Aerospaciale;
Projecto-P do Inmarsat (P para portátil); Odyssey (12) a partir de satélites
TRW; Aries (48) a partir de satélites Constelação Communications; e Ellipsat
(24 Satélite), a partir de Ellipso.
43
Iridium:
Em 1989, a Motorola anunciou uma proposta para lançar uma série de 77
satélites em órbita baixa da Terra, a partir de 1994. Iridium Inc. foi formada
para gerir o programa, que visa a oferecer em todo o mundo de telefones
celulares serviços. Embora inicialmente anunciado com poucos detalhes de
operação, muitas das lacunas já foram preenchidos. No início de 1991, a
vários pontos técnicos e comerciais ficaram claras pela primeira vez.
Em primeiro lugar, Iridium anunciou que o design dos aparelhos tinham sido
simplificada e agora usou uma versão enxuta do TDMA, TDMA, como usado
no padrão celular GSM. A simplificação é possível porque alguns dos
protocolos mais complexos não são necessários. Por exemplo, não há
nenhuma exigência para uma mão-off altamente complexa entre as células.
Como cada satélite tem a capacidade de controlar 37 células, sendo cada uma
delas cerca de 360 milhas náuticas de diâmetro, repasses vai ser pouco
frequentes.
Claramente, o uso de normas GSM será de grande benefício para o mercado
europeu, como os mesmos aparelhos poderiam ser usados para acessar ambas
as redes celulares terrestres e GSM por satélite. Quando um usuário faz uma
chamada com um tal de modo duplo aparelho, ele irá primeiro verificar se há
um sinal terrestre local. Se for incapaz de encontrar um, em seguida, ele
alterna para o modo Iridium. Isso levanta a questão de saber se os usuários
precisariam dois números de telefone, o que não seria uma situação boa
(eufemismo).
Foi proposto que Iridium iria utilizar uma parte 10.5MHz do espectro entre
1616 e 1626.5MHz. Motorola ganharam acesso a esta parte do espectro com a
46
Globalstar
A proposta Globalstar é de Loral Qualcomm Satellite Services Corporation,
(LQSS).
Fortemente apoiado por interesses franceses, incluindo Aerospaciale, Alcatel e
Alenia, LQSS inicialmente lançar 24 satélites para fornecer inicialmente um
serviço otimizado para os EUA continental. As operações internacionais
seguirá, após a implantação de 24 satélites adicionais.
Cada satélite deve cobrir uma área de 400 milhas de diâmetro. Estão previstos
dois tipos de equipamentos de utilizador. O primeiro, um veículo montado
terminal baseado em um projeto de rádio do carro, será facilmente removível
e fácil de operar. A segunda é uma mão terminal que o usuário pode tomar em
qualquer lugar. Globalstar será baseada na tecnologia spread spectrum
CDMA. Isto permite que a potência média de transmissão de um terminal para
ser menos do que 1 Watt e a utilização de antenas discretas.
Como Iridium, planos LQSS para fornecer serviços de transmissão de
organizações que irão revender capacidade de outros revendedores ou usuários
finais. Globalstar foi projetado para operar em conjunto com as redes
terrestres existentes através de gateways. Estes consistem em equipamentos,
que interagir sinais de um usuário Globalstar a uma rede celular local, no
Reino Unido este será Vodafone. O custo deste equipamento é projetado para
ser na ordem de um local de telefone celular adicional.
15.000
MEO
cinto 5000Lower Van Allen
51
0 LEO
Superfície Terrestre
Descoberta
A existência de ondas electromagnéticas, da qual as microondas são parte do espectro
electromagnético, foi previsto por James Clerk Maxwell em 1864 a partir de suas
equações. Em 1888, Heinrich Hertz foi o primeiro a demonstrar a existência de ondas
electromagnéticas através da construção de um aparelho que produzido e microondas na
região de UHF detectado. O design necessariamente utilizado cavalo-e-de buggy
materiais, incluindo uma calha de cavalo, uma faísca ponto de ferro forjado, garrafas de
Leiden, e um comprimento de calha de zinco cuja secção transversal parabólica
trabalhado como uma antena de reflexão. Em 1894 JC Bose demonstrado publicamente
53
Lote da transmissão atmosférica zénite no cume do Mauna kea ao longo de toda a gama
gigahertz do espectro electromagnético a um nível de vapor de água precipitável de 0,001
milímetros. (simulado)
Alcance de frequência
A gama das microondas inclui ultra-alta (UHF) (0,3-3 GHz), super alta frequência (SHF)
(3-30 GHz), e sinais de frequência extremamente alta (EHF) (30-300 GHz).
Acima de 300 GHz, a absorção da radiação eletromagnética pela atmosfera da Terra é tão
grande que é efetivamente opaco, até a atmosfera torna-se transparente novamente nas
chamadas faixas de frequência janela infravermelhos e ópticas.
Fontes de microondas
dispositivos baseados no tubo de vácuo operar sobre o movimento balístico de electrões
em vácuo sob a influência de controlo de campos eléctricos ou magnéticos, e incluem o
magnetrão, clístron, tubo de onda progressiva (TWT), e gyrotron. Estes dispositivos
funcionam no modo de densidade modulada, ao invés do modo modulada atual. Isso
significa que eles funcionam com base em aglomerados de elétrons voando ballistically
através deles, em vez de usando um fluxo contínuo.
Um maser é um dispositivo semelhante a um laser, exceto que ele funciona em
freqüências de microondas.
54
usos
Comunicação
Antes do advento da transmissão de fibra óptica, a maioria das chamadas
telefônicas de longa distância foram realizadas via microondas links ponto-a-ponto
através de sites como o AT & T Long Lines. Começando no início de 1950,
multiplex por divisão de freqüência foi usado para enviar até 5.400 canais de
telefone em cada canal de rádio micro-ondas, com até dez canais de rádio
combinados em uma antena para o hop para o próximo local, até 70 km de
distância.
protocolos de LAN sem fio, como Bluetooth e as especificações IEEE 802.11,
também usam microondas na faixa de 2,4 GHz ISM, embora 802.11a usa banda
ISM e freqüências U-NII na faixa de 5 GHz. Licenciado de longo alcance (até
cerca de 25 km) Os serviços de acesso à Internet sem fios pode ser encontrada em
muitos países (mas não os EUA) no intervalo 3,5-4,0 GHz.
Metropolitan Area Networks: protocolos homem, tais como WiMAX (Worldwide
Interoperability for Microwave Access) com base na especificação IEEE 802.16. A
especificação IEEE 802.16 foi projetado para operar entre 2 a 11 GHz. As
implementações comerciais estão na 2,3 GHz, 2,5 GHz, 3,5 GHz e 5,8 GHz gamas.
Wide Area Mobile Broadband Wireless Access: protocolos MBWA baseados em
especificações de padrões tais como IEEE 802.20 ou ATIS / ANSI HC-SDMA (por
exemplo iBurst) são projetados para operar entre 1,6 e 2,3 GHz para dar
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Sensoriamento remoto
Radar usa radiação de microondas para detectar o alcance, velocidade e outras
características de objetos remotos. Desenvolvimento de radar foi acelerado durante
a Segunda Guerra Mundial, devido à sua grande utilidade militar. Agora radar é
amplamente utilizado para aplicações como controle de tráfego aéreo, navegação
de navios, e aplicação de limite de velocidade.
Um diodo de Gunn oscilador e guia de onda são usados como um detector de
movimento para abridores de portas automáticas (embora estes estão a ser
substituídas por dispositivos de ultra-sons).
A maioria dos usos de radioastronomia microondas.
Navegação
Sistemas Globais de Navegação por Satélite (GNSS), incluindo o chinês 北斗 卫
星 导航 定位 系统 (Beidou), o Sistema Americano Posicionamento Global (GPS)
e russo ГЛОбальная НАвигационная Спутниковая Система (GLONASS)
transmitir sinais de navegação em várias bandas de entre cerca de 1,2 GHz e 1,6
GHz .
Poder
Um forno de microondas passes de radiação ionizante (-n) de microondas (com
uma frequência perto de 2,45 GHz) através dos alimentos, causando aquecimento
dieléctrico por absorção de energia na água, gorduras e açúcar contido no alimento.
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57
carta Designação
Alcance de frequência
banda L 1 a 2 GHz
banda S 2 a 4 GHz
banda C 4 a 8 GHz
banda X 8 a 12 GHz
banda Ku 12 a 18 GHz
banda Q 30 a 50 GHz
banda L 40 a 60 GHz
banda V 50 a 75 GHz
banda E 60 a 90 GHz
Nota de rodapé: banda P é por vezes usado incorretamente para banda Ku. "P" para
"anterior" foi uma banda de radar utilizado no Reino Unido entre 250 e 500 MHz e agora
obsoleto por .ts IEEEMicroondas conter energia suficiente para alterar quimicamente
directamente substâncias por ionização, e por isso são um exemplo de radiação não
ionizante. A palavra "radiação" refere-se ao fato de que a energia pode irradiar, e não à
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História e pesquisa
Talvez o primeiro documentado uso,, formal do microondas termo ocorreu em 1931:
"Quando ensaios com comprimentos de onda tão baixos como 18 cm foram dados a conhecer, houve surpresa
undisguised que o problema do micro-ondas foi resolvido de modo breve." Telegraph & Telephone Jornal XVII.
179/1
Talvez o primeiro uso da palavra microondas num contexto astronômico ocorreu em 1946
em um artigo "Microwave radiação do Sol e da Lua", de Robert Dicke e Robert Beringer.
Para um pouco da história do desenvolvimento da teoria eletromagnética aplicável a
aplicações de microondas modernos consulte os seguintes números:
Hans Christian Ørsted.
Michael Faraday.
James Clerk Maxwell.
Heinrich Hertz.
Nikola Tesla.
Guglielmo Marconi.
Samuel Morse.
Sir William Thomson, mais tarde Lord Kelvin.
Oliver Heaviside.
Lord Rayleigh.
Oliver Lodge.
Jagadish Chandra Bose.
Julius Lange.
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Capítulo 5: Antena
Uma antena é um transdutor projetado para transmitir ou receber ondas eletromagnéticas.
Em outras palavras, as antenas converter ondas electromagnéticas em correntes eléctricas
e vice-versa. Antenas são usados em sistemas, tais como rádio e televisão, comunicação
de rádio ponto-a-ponto, LAN sem fios, radar e exploração espacial. Antenas geralmente
funcionam em ar ou espaço exterior, mas também pode ser operado debaixo de água, ou
mesmo através do solo e rocha em certas frequências para distâncias curtas.
Fisicamente, uma antena é um conjunto de condutores que geram um campo
electromagnético irradiando em resposta a uma tensão alternada aplicada e a corrente
eléctrica alterna associada, ou podem ser colocadas em um campo electromagnético de
modo que o campo vai induzir uma corrente alternada na antena e uma voltagem entre os
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Terminologia
A antena palavras (plural: antenas) e "aéreos" são utilizados alternadamente; mas
geralmente uma estrutura metálica rígida é denominado uma antena e um formato de fio é
chamado uma antena. No Reino Unido e em outras áreas que falam inglês britânico é
mais comum do termo aéreo, mesmo para tipos rígidas. O substantivo aéreo é
ocasionalmente escrita com uma marca trema - aéreo - em reconhecimento da grafia
original da antena adjectivo a partir do qual o derivado é substantivo.
A origem da antena em relação ao aparelho de palavra sem fio é atribuída a Guglielmo
Marconi. Em 1895, ao testar aparelhos de rádio no início da Alpes suíços em Salvan,
Suíça na região do Mont Blanc, Marconi experimentou com equipamentos sem fio cedo.
A 2,5 metros de comprimento pólo, ao longo da qual foi realizado um fio, foi utilizado
como um elemento de antena irradia e receber. Em italiano um pau da barraca é
conhecido como l'antena centrale, eo pólo com um arame ao lado dela usado como uma
antena foi simplesmente chamado de l'antena. Até então transmitir irradiando sem fio e
elementos de recepção eram conhecidos simplesmente como antenas ou terminais. uso de
Marconi da antena palavra (italiano pela pole) se tornaria um termo popular para o que
hoje é uniformemente conhecida como a antena. Uma antena hertziana é um conjunto de
terminais que não requerem a presença de um campo para o seu funcionamento (em
comparação com um Tesla antena que é fundamentado.) Um carregado antena é uma
antena activa que tem uma porção alongada de comprimento eléctrico apreciável e tendo
indutância adicional ou capacitância directamente em série ou em paralelo com a parte
alongada, de modo a modificar o padrão de onda de pé existente ao longo da porção ou
para alterar o comprimento eléctrico efectivo da porção. Uma estrutura de antena de
aterramento é uma estrutura para o estabelecimento de um nível de potencial de
referência para o funcionamento da antena ativa. Ele pode ser qualquer estrutura
intimamente associada com (ou que actua como) o solo que se encontra ligado ao
terminal do receptor de sinal ou fonte opostos do terminal de antena activo, (isto é,
Visão geral
Antenas têm usos práticos para a transmissão e recepção de sinais de radiofrequência
(radio, TV, etc.). No ar, os sinais viajam perto da velocidade da luz no vácuo e com uma
perda de transmissão muito baixa. Os sinais são absorvidos quando propagação através
de materiais mais condutores, tais como paredes de betão, pedra, etc. Ao encontrar uma
interface, as ondas são parcialmente reflectida e parcialmente transmitido através.
A grande maioria das antenas são hastes verticais simples de um quarto de comprimento
de onda longo. Tais antenas são de construção simples, de baixo custo geralmente, e
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Um componente de antena é uma parte da antena que executa uma função distinta e
limitados à utilização de uma antena, como por exemplo, um reflector, director, ou antena
activo.
elementos parasitas são geralmente estruturas condutoras metálicas que reemitem para o
espaço livre que incide a radiação electromagnética proveniente ou indo para a antena
activo.
Um refractor onda electromagnética é uma estrutura que tem a forma ou posicionados
para retardar ou acelerar as ondas electromagnéticas transmitidas, passando através de tal
estrutura, uma quantidade que varia ao longo da frente da onda. Os refractores altera a
direcção de propagação das ondas emitidas a partir da estrutura em relação às ondas que
incidem sobre a estrutura. Pode, alternativamente, trazer a onda para um foco ou alterar a
frente de onda de outras maneiras, tal como para converter uma frente de onda esférica de
uma frente de onda plana (ou vice-versa). A velocidade das ondas de radiação tem uma
componente que é na mesma direcção (director) ou no sentido oposto (reflector) que o da
velocidade da onda impinging.
Um director é geralmente uma estrutura de condutor metálico que reradiates para o
espaço livre que incide a radiação electromagnética proveniente ou indo para a antena
activa, a velocidade da onda novamente irradiada com uma componente na direcção da
velocidade da onda impinging. O director modifica o padrão de irradiação da antena
activa e não existe uma relação significativa entre o potencial antena activa e esta
estrutura condutora.
Um reflector é geralmente uma estrutura de condutor metálico (por exemplo, tela, haste
ou placa) que reradiates volta para o espaço livre que incide a radiação electromagnética
proveniente ou indo para a antena activo. A velocidade da onda devolvida tendo um
componente num sentido oposto ao sentido da velocidade da onda impinging. O reflector
modifica a radiação da antena activa. Não há qualquer relação significativa entre o
potencial antena activa e esta estrutura condutora.
Uma rede de acoplamento de antena é uma rede passiva (que pode ser qualquer
combinação de um resistiva, o circuito (s) indutivo ou capacitivo) para a transmissão da
energia do sinal entre a antena activa e uma fonte (ou receptor) de tal energia do sinal.
Tipicamente, as antenas são concebidos para operar numa gama de frequências
relativamente estreita. Os critérios de projeto para receber e transmitir antenas
ligeiramente diferente, mas geralmente uma antena pode receber e transmitir igualmente
bem. Esta propriedade é chamada reciprocidade.
parâmetros
Existem vários parâmetros críticos que afetam o desempenho de uma antena e pode ser
ajustado durante o processo de design. Estes são frequência ressonante, impedância, o
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Frequência de ressonância
A "freqüência de ressonância" e "ressonância elétrica" está relacionado com o
comprimento elétrico da antena. O comprimento eléctrico é normalmente o comprimento
físico do fio dividido pelo seu factor de velocidade (a razão entre a velocidade de
propagação da onda no fio para c0, a velocidade da luz no vácuo). Tipicamente, uma
antena é sintonizado para uma frequência específica, e é eficaz para uma gama de
frequências geralmente centrados em que a frequência ressonante. No entanto, as outras
propriedades da antena (especialmente padrão de radiação e impedância) mudança com
freqüência, por isso a frequência de ressonância da antena pode ser apenas perto da
freqüência central dessas outras propriedades mais importantes.
As antenas podem ser feitas de ressonância em frequências harmónicas com
comprimentos que são fracções do comprimento de onda alvo. Alguns projetos de antena
tem múltiplas frequências ressonantes, e alguns são relativamente eficaz sobre uma ampla
gama de freqüências. O tipo mais vulgarmente conhecido de largura de banda da antena é
a logarítmica ou log periódica, mas o seu ganho é normalmente muito mais baixa do que
a de um específico ou banda estreita aéreo.
Ganho
Ganhar como uma das medidas de parâmetros a direcionalidade de uma dada antena.
Uma antena com um ganho baixo emite radiação com aproximadamente a mesma
potência em todas as direcções, enquanto que uma antena de alto ganho irá
preferencialmente irradiam em direcções particulares. Especificamente, o ganho, o ganho
directiva ou ganho de energia de uma antena é definida como a razão entre a intensidade
(energia por unidade de superfície) radiada pela antena numa dada direcção a uma
distância arbitrária dividida pela intensidade irradiada na mesma distância por um antena
isotrópica hipotética.
O ganho de uma antena é um fenômeno passivo - o poder não é adicionado pela antena,
mas simplesmente redistribuído para fornecer energia mais irradiada em um determinado
sentido do que seria transmitido por uma antena isotrópica. Se uma antena tem um maior
do que um ganho em algumas direções, ele deve ter um menos de um ganho em outras
direções, desde a energia é conservada pela antena. Um designer de antena deve levar em
conta o pedido de antena ao determinar o ganho. antenas de alto ganho têm a vantagem
de maior alcance e melhor qualidade de sinal, mas deve visar cuidadosamente em uma
determinada direção. antenas de baixo ganho têm menor alcance, mas a orientação da
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antena é inconseqüente. Por exemplo, uma antena em uma nave espacial é um dispositivo
de alto ganho (deve ser apontado para o planeta para ser eficaz), enquanto que uma
antena WiFi típico em um computador portátil é de baixo ganho (desde que a estação de
base está dentro do alcance, a antena pode estar em qualquer uma orientação no espaço).
Faz sentido de melhorar a amplitude horizontal em detrimento da recepção acima ou
abaixo da antena. Assim, a maioria das antenas rotulado como "omnidirecional"
realmente tem algum ganho.
Por vezes, o dipolo de meia-onda é tomada como uma referência, em vez do radiador
isotrópico. O ganho é então dada em dBd (decibéis sobre dipolo):
0 dBd = 2,15 dBi
Padrão de radiação
O padrão de radiação de uma antena é o padrão geométrico das intensidades de campo
relativa do campo emitido pela antena. Para a antena isotrópica ideal, isso seria uma
esfera. Para um dipolo típico, este seria um toro. O padrão de radiação de uma antena é
tipicamente representado por um gráfico tridimensional, ou parcelas polares das secções
transversais horizontal e vertical. O gráfico deve mostrar lóbulos laterais e backlobes,
onde o ganho da antena está em um mínimos ou máximos.
Impedância
Como uma onda electro-magnética se desloca através das diferentes partes do sistema de
antena (rádio, linha de alimentação, a antena, o espaço livre) que podem ser encontradas
diferenças de impedância (E / H, V / I, etc). Em cada interface, dependendo do jogo
impedância, algumas fracções da energia da onda vão reflectir de volta para a fonte,
formando uma onda estacionária na linha de alimentação. A relação entre a potência
máxima a potência mínima na onda pode ser medido e é denominada a taxa de onda
estacionia (SWR). A ROE de 1: 1 é ideal. Um cabos de aço de 1,5: 1 é considerado para
ser marginalmente aceitável em aplicações de baixa potência, onde a perda de energia é
mais crítica, apesar de uma ROE tão elevada como 6: 1 podem ainda ser utilizável com o
equipamento adequado. Minimizar as diferenças de impedância em cada interface
(correspondência de impedância) vai reduzir os cabos de aço e maximizar a transferência
de energia através de cada parte do sistema de antena.
impedância complexa de uma antena está relacionada com o comprimento eléctrico da
antena no comprimento de onda em utilização. A impedância de uma antena pode ser
combinado com a linha de alimentação e rádio, ajustando a impedância da linha de
alimentação, utilizando a linha de alimentação de um transformador de impedância. Mais
comumente, a impedância é ajustado para a carga (veja abaixo) com um sintonizador de
antena, um balun, um transformador de correspondência, redes compostas por indutores e
capacitores, ou seções correspondentes, como o jogo de gama correspondência.
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Eficiência
"Eficiência" é a relação entre poder efetivamente irradiada para o posto de energia nos
terminais de antena. A carga fictícia pode ter um ROE de 1: 1, mas uma eficiência de 0, já
que absorve todo o poder e irradia calor, mas não energia de RF, mostrando que SWR por
si só não é uma medida eficaz de eficiência de uma antena. A radiação em uma antena é
causado pela resistência à radiação, que só pode ser medido como parte da resistência
total, incluindo perda de resistência. resistência à perda geralmente resulta na geração de
calor, em vez de radiação, e reduz a eficiência. Matematicamente, a eficiência é calculada
como a resistência à radiação dividida pela resistência total.
Bandwidth
A "largura de banda" de uma antena é a gama de frequências sobre a qual é eficaz,
geralmente centrada na frequência ressonante. A largura de banda de uma antena pode ser
aumentada por várias técnicas, incluindo o uso de fios mais grossos, substituindo os fios
com gaiolas para simular um fio mais grosso, afunilando antena componentes (como em
uma trompa de alimentação), e da combinação de várias antenas num único conjunto e
permitindo que o natural impedância para selecionar a antena correta. Pequenas antenas
são geralmente preferidos por conveniência, mas há um limite fundamental relativo a
largura de banda, tamanho e eficiência.
Polarização
O "polarização" de uma antena é a orientação do campo eléctrico (E-plano) da onda de
rádio em relação à superfície da Terra e é determinada pela estrutura física da antena e
pela sua orientação. Não tem nada em comum com antena termos de direcionalidade:
"horizontal", "vertical" e "circular". Assim, uma antena de fio linear simples terá uma
polarização quando montado verticalmente, e uma polarização diferente quando montado
horizontalmente. "filtros de polarização das ondas electromagnéticas" são estruturas que
podem ser empregues para actuar directamente sobre a onda electromagnética para filtrar
a energia das ondas de uma polarização e indesejado para passar a energia das ondas de
uma polarização desejado.
Reflexões geralmente afeta polarização. Para ondas de rádio o refletor mais importante é
a ionosfera - sinais que refletem de que terá a sua polarização mudou de forma
imprevisível. Para sinais que são refletidos pela ionosfera, a polarização não pode ser
invocado. Para comunicações de linha de vista para que a polarização pode ser invocado,
ele pode fazer uma grande diferença na qualidade do sinal para ter o transmissor eo
receptor utilizando a mesma polarização; muitas dezenas de diferenças dB são
comumente vistos e isso é mais do que suficiente para fazer a diferença entre a
comunicação razoável e um link quebrado.
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Transmissão e recepção
Todos os parâmetros de antena são expressas em termos de uma antena de transmissão,
mas são identicamente aplicável a uma antena de recepção, devido à reciprocidade.
Impedância, no entanto, não é aplicado de uma maneira óbvia; por impedância, a
impedância na carga (onde a energia é consumida) é mais crítico. Para uma antena de
transmissão, esta é a própria antena. Para uma antena de recepção, este é na (rádio)
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antenas práticas
Embora qualquer circuito pode irradiar se conduzido com um sinal de frequência
suficientemente alta, a maioria das antenas práticos são especialmente concebidos para
irradiar de forma eficiente a uma frequência particular. Um exemplo de uma antena
ineficiente é a antena dipolo hertziana simples, que irradia através ampla gama de
frequências e é útil para o seu tamanho pequeno. Uma variação mais eficiente desta é o
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dipolo de meia-onda, que irradia com elevada eficiência quando o comprimento de onda
do sinal é duas vezes o comprimento eléctrico da antena.
Um dos objetivos da antena projeto é minimizar a reatância do dispositivo para que ele
aparece como uma carga resistiva. Um "antena reatância inerente" inclui não apenas a
reactância distribuído da antena activa mas também a reactância natural, devido à sua
localização e ambiente (como, por exemplo, a relação inerente capacidade na posição da
antena activa em relação ao chão). desvios rectâncias energia no campo reativa, o que
provoca correntes indesejadas que aquecem a antena e fiação associada, desperdiçando
assim energia sem contribuir para a saída irradiada. Reactância pode ser eliminado
através da operação da antena, na sua frequência de ressonância, quando a sua capacitivo
e de reactância indutiva são igual e oposta, resultando numa corrente líquida igual a zero
reactivo. Se isso não for possível,
Uma vez que a reactância foi eliminado, o que permanece é uma resistência puro, que é a
soma de duas partes: a resistência óhmica dos condutores, e a resistência à radiação.
Potência absorvida pela resistência óhmica torna-se calor residual, e que absorvida pela
resistência à radiação torna-se irradiava energia eletromagnética. Quanto maior for a
proporção de resistência à radiação de resistência óhmica, o mais eficiente a antena.
Efeito do solo
As antenas são tipicamente utilizados num ambiente em que outros objectos estão
presentes que podem ter um efeito sobre o seu desempenho. Altura acima do solo tem um
efeito muito significativo sobre o padrão de radiação de alguns tipos de antena.
Em freqüências usadas em antenas, o solo se comporta essencialmente como um
dielétrico. A condutividade da terra nestas freqüências é insignificante. Quando uma onda
electromagnética chega à superfície de um objecto, duas ondas são criadas: uma entra o
dieléctrico e o outro é reflectida. Se o objecto é um condutor, a onda transmitida é
negligenciável e a onda reflectida tem quase a mesma amplitude que o um incidente.
Quando o objeto é um dielétrico, a fração refletida depende (entre outras coisas) do
ângulo de incidência. Quando o ângulo de incidência é pequena (isto é, a onda chega
quase perpendicularmente) a maior parte da energia atravessa a superfície e muito pouco
é reflectida. Quando o ângulo de incidência é de perto de 90 ° (incidência pastoreio)
quase toda a onda é reflectida.
A maior parte das ondas electromagnéticas emitidas por uma antena para o chão abaixo
da antena a moderada (por exemplo <60 °) ângulos de incidência entrar na terra e são
absorvidos (perdido). Mas ondas emitidas à terra em pastagem ângulos, longe da antena,
são quase totalmente refletida. Em ângulos pastando, o solo se comporta como um
espelho. Qualidade de reflexão depende da natureza da superfície. Quando as
irregularidades da superfície são menores do que o comprimento de onda reflexão é bom.
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A onda reflectida por terra pode ser considerado como emitido pela antena imagem.
Isto significa que o receptor "vê" a antena real e, sob o solo, a imagem da antena refletida
pelo solo. Se o terreno tem irregularidades, a imagem irá aparecer difusa.
Se o receptor está colocado a uma certa altura acima do solo, ondas reflectidas pelo solo
irá percorrer uma distância pouco mais de tempo a chegar ao receptor de ondas directas.
A distância será a mesma apenas se o receptor está perto de terra.
No desenho à direita, que têm atraído o ângulo muito maior do que na realidade.
Distância entre a antena e sua imagem é .
A situação é um pouco mais complexo porque a reflexão de ondas eletromagnéticas
depende da polarização da onda incidente. À medida que o índice de refracção do solo
(valor médio ) É maior do que o índice de refracção do ar ( ), A direcção do
componente do campo eléctrico paralelo ao solo as inversas na reflexão. Isto é
equivalente a um desvio de fase de radianos ou 180 °. A componente vertical do campo
elétrico reflete, sem mudar de direcção. Esta inversão do sinal do componente paralelo e
o não-inversão da componente perpendicular poderia também ocorrer se o solo fosse um
bom condutor eléctrico.
A componente vertical da corrente reflete sem sinal mudando. Os reveses componente horizontal assinar
a reflexão.
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Isto significa que uma antena de recepção "vê" a antena de imagem com a corrente na
mesma direcção, se a antena é vertical ou com a corrente invertida se a antena é
horizontal.
Para uma antena de emissão polarizadas vertical, o campo distante eléctrico da onda
electromagnética produzida pelo raio directo mais o raio reflectido é:
A inversão de sinal para o caso de campo paralelo apenas muda um cosseno a uma sine:
padrões de radiação de antenas e suas imagens refletidas pelo chão. À esquerda a polarização é vertical e
há sempre um máximo de . Se a polarização é horizontal como na direita, há sempre um zero para
.
Para emissão e recepção de antena situada perto do solo (em um edifício ou em um
mastro) longe um do outro, distâncias percorridas pelos raios diretos e refletidos são
quase os mesmos. Não há nenhum desvio de fase induzida. Se a emissão é polarizada
verticalmente os dois campos (directo e reflectido) adicionar e não há máximo de sinal
recebido. Se a emissão é polarizada horizontalmente, os dois sinais e subtrai o sinal
recebido é mínimo. Isso é ilustrado na imagem à direita. No caso de polarização vertical,
há sempre um máximo no nível terra (padrão esquerda). Para a polarização horizontal, há
sempre um mínimo a nível terra. Note-se que nestes desenhos o solo é considerado como
um espelho perfeito, mesmo para baixos ângulos de incidência. Nesses desenhos a
distância entre a antena e sua imagem está a apenas alguns comprimentos de onda.
Note-se que a situação é diferente - e mais complexo - se ocorrer reflexos na ionosfera.
Isso acontece em distâncias muito longas (milhares de quilómetros). Não há um raio
direto, mas vários raios refletidos que agregam com diferentes deslocamentos de fase.
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Esta é a razão pela qual quase todas as emissões de rádio de endereços públicos têm
polarização vertical. Como os usuários públicos estão perto do solo, emissões polarizadas
horizontais seria mal recebido. Observe receptores de rádio automóvel domésticos e.
Todos eles têm antenas verticais ou antenas de ferrite horizontais para as emissões
verticais polarizados. Nos casos em que a antena receptora trabalho deve em qualquer
posição, como em telefones móveis, o emissor e os receptores nas estações de base usar
ondas eletromagnéticas polarizadas circulares.
Clássicos emissões (analógico) de televisão são uma excepção. Eles são quase sempre
polarizada horizontalmente, porque a presença de edifícios torna improvável que um bom
emissor antena imagem aparecerá. No entanto, esses mesmos edifícios refletem as ondas
eletromagnéticas e pode criar imagens fantasmas. Usando polarização horizontal,
reflexões são atenuadas por causa da baixa reflexão de ondas eletromagnéticas cujo
campo magnético é paralela à superfície dielétrica perto o ângulo de Brewster. televisão
analógica polarizado verticalmente tem sido utilizado em algumas áreas rurais. Em
reflexões de televisão digital terrestre são menos irritante por causa do tipo de
modulação.
impedância mútua entre paralelo dipolos não titubeou. Curvas Re e Im são as partes resistivas e
reactivos da impedância.
Corrente que circula em todas as correntes induz antena em todas as outras. Pode-se
postular uma impedância mútua entre duas antenas que tem o mesmo significado como
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Onde é a corrente que flui na antena 1 e é a tensão que tem de ser aplicado à antena 2
- com uma antena removido - para produzir a corrente na antena 2 que foi produzido por
uma antena.
A partir desta definição, as correntes e tensões aplicadas em um conjunto de antenas
acopladas são:
Onde:
é a tensão aplicada à antena
é a impedância da antena
é a impedância mútua entre as antenas e
Note que, como é o caso de indutâncias mútuas,
galeria Antenna
Antenas e matrizes de antenas
Uma antena
Um feixe de
74
i. O segmento espacial
ii. O Segmento de terra
iii. Segmento de Veículo de Lançamento
O segmento espacial
orçamentos gerais configurationSatellite
76
configuração geral
A principal driver para a configuração do satélite Platform Polar / Envisat tem sido a
necessidade de maximizar a área de montagem do instrumento de carga e para atender
aos requisitos de visualização, dentro dos limites do Ariane 5 carenagem e interfaces.
Além disso, a configuração também tem sido impulsionada pela reutilização do conceito
módulo de serviço SPOT Mk II e o ERS alojamento carga experiência (conceito da
electrónica aparelho numa caixa interna com montado externamente antenas).
orçamentos de satélite
configuração de lançamento
dimensões
Dimensões (m)
Configuração Comprimento de 10,5
de lançamento m, diâmetro de envelope
4.57m
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Em órbita
configuração 26m * 10m * 5m
Orçamento Mass
Massa (kg)
Módulo de serviço 2673
Payload Equipment
1021
Bay
payload Transportador 2078
Combustível 319
payload Instruments 2118
Total 8211
Orçamento de energia
Média de potência (W)
Luz solar Eclipse
carga paga 1841 1886
Módulo payload 860 527
Módulo de serviço 859 684
carga total 3560 3097
capacidade do
3847 3291
sistema
Segmento espacial
78
ORBCOMM opera vinte e nove satélites em seis planos orbitais que oferecem cobertura
em todo o mundo. Estes satélites são relativamente pequenos em tamanho, de peso
inferior a cem libras e medindo apenas quarenta e duas polegadas de diâmetro e seis
polegadas de altura antes da implantação. O tamanho relativamente pequeno dos nossos
satélites é possível pelo fato de que eles não precisam de um sistema de propulsão para
manter os satélites na órbita adequada e têm requisitos de energia significativamente mais
baixos em comparação com geostationarysatellites.Each satélite está equipado com um
VHF e Ultra High frequência, ou UHF, carga útil de comunicação capaz de operação no
137,0-150,05 MHz e as bandas de 400.075-400.125 MHz. O uso do uplink sistema
(Terra-espaço) o espectro seja gerido por um computador de bordo que emprega a
atividade do canal dinâmico Atribuição pioneira-ORBCOMM sistema, ou DCAAS.
DCAAS varre continuamente o espectro autorizado, identifica frequências em uso por
outros utilizadores da faixa de frequência de assinante e atribui canais de comunicação de
ligação ascendente para minimizar a interferência. DCAAS altera a freqüência de uplink
pelo menos a cada 15 segundos, o que permite que o nosso sistema de coexistir com os
usuários atuais da banda de frequência VHF, e os limites de interferência para níveis
aceitáveis. As estações terrestres de acesso e os comunicadores de assinantes comunicar
com os satélites na mesma banda VHF, eliminando assim a complexidade do projeto,
bem como a maior parte associada, potência e custo de suporte de equipamentos de
comunicação múltiplos em um único satélite.
Satellite Constellation
Plane A B C D G
In Service 8 8 6 6 1
Semimajor Axis (km) 7,178 7,178 7,178 7,178 7,198
Altitude (km) 800 800 800 800 820
Inclination (deg 45 45 45 45 108
Orbit Period (min) 101 101 101 101 101
The Space Segment comprises one operational satellite (the Thuraya 2) positioned in
Geosynchronous Orbit, 35,786 km (22,236 miles) above the Earth, at 44 degrees East
Longitude and inclined at 6.3 degrees.
The first operational satellite was successfully launched on the 21st October 2000 and
full commercial service began in a gradual roll out starting from April 2001 in many
countries in Thuraya’s coverage area. Thuraya’s second satellite Thuraya 2 was launched
on the 10th of June 2003 while a third satellite is being built by Boeing Satellite Systems
to expand system capacity.
The Thuraya Geo satellite, which constitutes the Space Segment, is operated and
managed by a sophisticated and integrated ground network known as the Ground
Segment. The Ground Segment includes the Satellite Operation Centre, which monitors
and controls satellite movement, ensuring the overall and ongoing maintenance of
satellites in geo-synchronous orbit.
Satellite Overall Design
Number of satellites: 2
Type of orbit: Geo-synchronous orbit with 6.3° inclination
Orbital locations: 44° E and 28.5° E
Service life of 12 years
Compatible with Sea Launch and Ariane 5 launch vehicles and others
Supplier: Hughes Space & Communications International, Inc.
Payload Subsystem
12.25 meter aperture deployable satellite antenna
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Bus Subsystem
Power
SolarBeginning of life 13KWEnd of life 11KW
Dimensions
In orbit
L, solar arrays 34.5 m (113ft)W,antenna 17m (55.7 ft)
Stowed
H:7.6m (25 ft)W:3.75m * 3.75m (12.3 ft)
Weights
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The space segment comprises four geostationary satellites. ESA was responsible for the
development of the first satellite, Meteosat-8, according to a requirement baseline
coordinated with EUMETSAT. ESA acted, on behalf of EUMETSAT, as procurement
agent for Meteosat-9, and will also act as procurement agent for Meteosat-10 and
Meteosat-11, which will all be manufactured by a European industrial consortium led by
Alcatel Space Industries, France. The four MSG satellites will ensure continuity of
service for at least 18 years.
MSG is a two-satellite operational service, like the previous Meteosat system, with one
operational satellite and one satellite available in orbit as a spare. Each satellite has an
operating lifetime of seven years. The first satellite, Meteosat-8, was launched on 28
August 2002 and became operational in January 2004 at 3.3°W. The images taken by
Meteosat-8 were rectified to a sub-satellite point of 0°. In a transition period, Meteosat-7
and Meteosat-8 operated in parallel. In this period Meteosat-7 remained in its operational
position at 0°.
Following launch on 21 December 2005, MSG-2 went through a commissioning phase.
In July 2006 Meteosat-7 started its relocation to the Indian Ocean at 57.5° E, while MSG-
2 took over the operational position at 0° and was renamed Meteosat-9. On 11 April 2007
Meteosat-9 was declared the prime satellite, while Meteosat-8 became the back-up
satellite.
For launch dates for the remaining two MSG satellites, Meteosat-10 and Meteosat-11.
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The SEVIRI (Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager) radiometer is the main
element of the MSG satellites. It scans the Earth's surface sufficiently quickly to permit a
repeat cycle of 15 minutes, using spectral bands that can provide daylight images of the
weather patterns, plus atmospheric pseudo-sounding and thermal information.
MSG satellites also carry the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument.
This instrument monitors the Earth's radiation budget at the top of the atmosphere
allowing short- and long-wave radiation calculations, essential for understanding the
Earth's climate balance.
In addition to these two instruments, MSG satellites carry a comprehensive
communications payload serving the needs of satellite operation, data communication
and user data dissemination. A Search and Rescue transponder is also included in this
communications package.
High gain in the direction of the satellite (because the free-space attenuation
between the satellite and the earth station is around 200 dB)
Very low gain in all directions other than the satellite (so that the antenna does not
cause nor receive too much interference or noise)
Good polarization isolation (e.g. good rejection of vertically polarized signals
when receiving horizontally polarized signals)
High efficiencyGood pointing accuracy because high antenna gain means narrow
bandwidth (e.g. an antenna with a diameter of 13m has a 3 dB beam width of
around 0.1° at a frequency of 14 GHz)
An earth-station comprises:
A feed and reflector system.
A pedestal or mount which supports the reflector and feed and enables the antenna
to be accurately pointed towards the satellite.
The feed and reflector have to be made very accurately in order to maximise the gain on-
axis, minimise the sidelobes and ensure good polarisation isolation.Large antennas
(which have narrow beams) normally have tracking systems which keep the antenna
pointing at the satellite even when the satellite moves. Even for tracking antennas, the
reflector, feed and mount must be very rigid so as to ensure maximum beam stability,
even during high winds.The most commonly used mount for large earth stations is the
elevation-over-azimuth (EL-AZ) mount. The azimuth axis is vertical and the elevation
axis is horizontal and the
Antenna Theory:
An Isotropic Antenna is a (theoretical) antenna that radiates energy uniformly in all
directions.Thus if the power radiated by an isotropic antenna is Pt then the power flux
density (PFD) at a distance s metres from the antenna (in free space) is:PFD = Pt /
(4*pi*s2) W/m2Note that (4*pi*s2) which is the area of the sphere of radius s is called
the "spreading area".A real receiving antenna will collect power in an effective area Ae
m2 and if it is at a distance s metres from the transmitting antenna then the power
received (Pr) is:Pr = Ae . PFD = Ae . Pt / (4*pi*s2) WThe relationship between the gain
G of an antenna and its effective area (where l is the wavelength in metres) is:Ae = (G*
λ2) / (4*pi) m2The effective area Ai of an isotropic antenna, which by definition has unit
gain is therefore:Ai = λ2 / (4*pi) m2
Now, if the transmitting and receiving antennas have gains Gt and Gr respectively then
the power C received is:C = (Pt . Gt) . Gr / L = EIRP . (Gr / L) WNote two ways of
finding the power received:
Using the PFD and effective area of the receiving antenna
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The effective area Ae of an antenna is related to the physical area of its aperture Aa by the
expression:Ae = h . Aawhere h is the efficiency of the antenna.The efficiency is less than
100% because the antenna is not perfect and the main factors are:
Spillover past the subreflector and main reflector (rays A and C in the figure)
Blockage of the antenna aperture by the subreflector (B) and supports (not shown)
Losses due to profile and other manufacturing errors
Ohmic losses
Non-uniform amplitude and phase distribution in the aperture
We have already seen that:Ae = (G*λ2) / (4*pi*m2)So: G = (4*pi*Ae) / λ2 =
(4*pi*h*Aa) / λ2 i.e. G = h * (pi*D / λ)2where D is the antenna diameter in metres. As
gain increases, the beamwidth decreases.The half-power (3 dB) beamwidth is given
by:HPBW = (N*λ) / D degreesWhere N is a constant dependant on the aperture
illumination.For an ideally illuminated aperture (i.e. each point in the aperture is
illuminated with an RF signal of the same amplitude and phase)N = 58 but this is not
achievable in practice.For an efficient real antenna, N is approximately 65.
Radiation Patterns
ITU-R Recommendation S.465 defines a radiation mask for use in coordination and
interference assessment:
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Scattering and blockage:- Any object which blocks part of the radiation from an
aperture disturbs the wavefront and causes additional sidelobes- There is a lower
practical limit to the subreflector size so for small antennas the front fed
configuration may give better sidelobes- Struts supporting the feed or subreflector
also cause blockage and scattering
Reflector profile errors:- Sidelobes caused by reflector profile errors are influenced
by two factors, the rms value of the errors and the correlation distance of the
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Antenna Polarisation:
An antenna has a polarisation state that can be described in the same way as that of a
wave.
The proportion of power in a wave that is transferred to an antenna depends on their
relative polarisations.
For the general case (wave and antenna both elliptically polarised), power will only be
transferred from the wave to the antenna if the 2 polarisation states have: - The same
sense of rotation - Equal VARs and - Equal tilt angles
Elliptical Polarization
Circular polarisation results from the combination of two orthogonal equal-magnitude
waves in quadrature.
Usually try to produce a true circularly polarised wave.Imperfections in the equipment
often result in the wave being elliptically polarised
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Dual Polarisation:
When no power is transferred from a wave to an antenna they are said to be orthogonally
polarised.
By using a dual-polarised feed an antenna can transmit two orthogonally polarised waves
on the same frequency.
Another antenna can then receive the two orthogonally polarised waves and separate
them by means of an electrically identical dual polarised feed.
In theory this can be done without any interference between the two signals. However, in
practice there will always be some interference because the orthogonally polarised waves
and/or the receiving antenna will not be perfectly orthogonal because of imperfections in
the antenna and feeds or changes of polarisation which occur during transmission as a
result of the signal passing through the atmosphere
E21)
Note that to measure XPI, two highly orthogonal waves must be transmitted, to measure
XPD only a single polarisation needs to be transmitted (as following figures).
Noise
There are two main sources of noise in a satellite system:
Noise arising in the satellite and earth-station equipment, and
Noise collected by the satellite and earth-station antennas
The antenna receives noise from the sky and from the earth.
Sky noise comprises cosmic (galactic) noise and noise resulting from absorption and re-
radiation of energy by water and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere
Noise power radiated by the Earth is collected by the side lobes of the earth-station
antenna and the main beam of the satellite antenna.
Noise power N is related to an equivalent noise temperature by the expression:N = k . T .
B wattsWhere:
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K is Boltzmann's constant (1.38 x 10-23 J/K)B is the bandwidth in which the noise is
measured (in Hz
G/T The ratio between the receive gain of an earth-station and its noise temperature is a
measure of the "quality" with which it is able to receive signals
(Also known as the "Figure of Merit")
G/T ranges from around 37 dB/K for high-gain low-noise FSS antennas to about -23
dB/K for low-gain high-noise mobile terminals.
Noise Temperature
The noise power collected by an antenna comprises:
Atmospheric attenuation noise caused by absorption and re-radiation of signal
energy by water and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere; this noise increases
rapidly with decreasing antenna elevation angle because the signal has to travel
further through the atmosphere; it also increases when it is raining.
Noise radiated by the Earth - collected through the antenna sidelobes.
Cosmic (galactic) noise - only contributes a few K to the noise temperature.
Ohmic losses - i.e. losses due to the resistance of the feed system and the antenna
reflectors.
Attenuation between the antenna and the LNA - contributes about 7K for every 0.1
dB of loss, so it is essential to put the LNA very close to the antenna.
Low-Noise Amplifiers
The information carrying capacity of any radio system is proportional to the ratio:C / T =
(carrier power / system noise temperature)It is therefore necessary to make the system
noise temperature as small as possible to maximise the information capacity.The value of
T on the downlink of a satellite system depends primarily on the noise temperature of the
earth-station antenna and the amplifier following it.A satellite antenna looks at the earth
(at a temperature of around 290K) so there is little point in spending a lot of money to fit
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it with a low-noise amplifier. However, an earth-station antenna looks at the sky and its
noise temperature is usually much lower than 290K.As an example, the noise temperature
of an earth-station antenna working at 4 GHz varies from about 20K at high elevation
angles to around 45K at an elevation angle of 5° (when the sky is clear).Earth terminals
equipped with large antennas used to use cryogenic parametric amplifiers
(paramps).Cryogenic means "at a very low temperature" and cryogenic paramps were
cooled to around 20K (i.e. -253° C) by using refrigerating plant circulating gaseous
helium. Cryogenic paramps are expensive and require a lot of skilled maintenance
effort.Higher satellite powers have made them unnecessary for most satellite systems and
they are rarely used nowadays.Types of LNA in common use today include:
In the above example, an antenna of gain 52 dBi and noise temperature 35K is connected
to an LNA of gain 50 dB and noise temperature 80K via waveguide and hence to a
receiver via co-axial cable. What is the system noise temperature Te?First some
definitions: Tr = (NF - 1) x 290 K (1) Tp = [(1 - G) / G] x 290 K (2) To = G . Ti K
(3)Where (all components assumed to be at 290K): Tr = noise temperature NT
corresponding to a noise figure NF Tp = noise temperature of a passive network (e.g.
waveguide) of gain G To = output noise temperature of a noiseless network of gain
GThus: T1 = [(1 - 0.955) / 0.955] x 290 = 13.7K T2 = 80 T3 = [(1 - 0.25) / 0.25] x 290 =
870K T4 = (15.85 - 1) x 290 = 4307KNow: Te = Ta.G1 + T1.G1 + T2 + T3/G2 + T4/
(G2.G3)Where: Te = noise temperature of the system (earth-station) referred to the input
of the LNA Ta = the noise temperature of the antenna at its output terminals and G1, G2,
G3 and T1, T2, T3, T4 are the gains and input noise temperatures of the corresponding
networks as given in the previous figureHence: Te = 35 x 0.955 + 13.7 x 0.955 + 80 +
870 / 105 + 4307 / (105 x 0.25) = 33 + 13 + 80 + 0.17i.e. Te = 126 K
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Power Amplifiers
EIRP of emissions from earth stations (excluding mobile stations) ranges- around 20
dBW for low-rate data applications- to nearly 90 dBW for some TV and large multi-
channel telephony applications
EIRPs are achieved using antennas with gains ranging from around 20 dBi to 66 dBi.
Corresponding powers necessary to deliver to the antenna ranges from around 1 watt to
several hundred watts. BUT maximum power capability of the transmitters in some earth
stations is several hundred kilowatts. It is necessary to use the transmitters very
inefficiently when they are amplifying more than one carrier
Losses in the networks required to combine the outputs of a number of transmitters.
Main types of PA in earth-stations are:
Travelling wave tube (TWT) amplifiers
Klystron amplifiers
Solid-state (SS) power amplifiers
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Travelling wave tube amplifiers (TWTA) have bandwidths of 500 MHz and more and
powers from a few watts to many kilowatts.
Klystrons have bandwidths of 40 to 80 MHz and are tuneable over 500 MHz or more.
Powers from several hundred watts to many kilowatts. Cheaper, easier to set up, operate
and maintain than TWTAs.
Solid-State Power Amplifiers are comparatively cheap and reliable. Power is relatively
limited compared with TWTAs and Klystrons.
The most important characteristics of HPAs, apart from frequency, power, bandwidth and
linearity are:
Gain: The gain of TWTAs and klystrons ranges from about 35 to 50 dB and
Intermediate Power Amplifiers (IPAs) are often needed between the modulators
and power amplifiers.
Noise and spurious outputs: All amplifiers generate noise; the noise figure (NF)
of microwave power amplifiers is usually about 30 dB but special low-noise tubes
are available as pre-amplifiers; Pas may also generate spurious tones and may
modulate output signals as a result of ripple on power supplies.
Tracking:
Real GSO satellites do not remain exactly stationary in orbit. Movement will occur
east/west and north/south due to:
Small errors in placing them in orbit
Disturbing forces in orbit- Earth's gravity field is not uniform- Gravitational forces
of sun and moon- Solar pressure
96
Stationkeeping on the satellite maintains the position within a small "box" typically ±0.1°
N-S and E-W.Small antennas have a 3 dB beamwidth larger than the stationkeeping box
so no difficulties arise.Large antennas have narrow beams smaller than the stationkeeping
box so require a tracking and steering system to remain pointing at the satellite.In the
early experimental days of satellite communications earth stations were manually steered
by operators using joysticks. Manual steering is not practical for commercial systems and
so automatic systems of two basic types are used:
Programme track:
- Uses calculated theoretical pointing information- Pointing data calculated from
satellite orbital elements from tracking stations- Data needs to be updated
frequently to remain accurate
Autotrack:
- Uses a signal from the satellite and a feedback control loop to track in real time-
Not dependant on predictions or orbital elementsCommon types: Steptrack and
Monopulse
Tracking errors result in loss of pointing accuracy and hence loss of earth-station gain in
the direction of the satellite. The aim is to keep the loss to a fraction of a dB. Reduction
in gain (dG) relative to the maximum (on-axis) gain of an antenna of half-power
beamwidth (HPBW) for a small angular offset (dq) is given approximately by:dG = 12
(dq / HPBW)2 dBThe aim is therefore to keep pointing error (dq) to about 0.1 x HPBW.
For a large diameter antenna (~400*l) the HPBW is ~0.15°. Desirable pointing error is
thus < ~0.015° This is generally achieved by using an automatic tracking and pointing
systemSmaller antennas (~ 25 to 100*l) the HPBW is ~ 0.5° à 2.5° and these do not need
continuous tracking but may need to be manually redirected from time to time.Steptrack
systems make frequent small changes in the pointing direction of the antenna in both
axes. Does the signal increase or decrease? If it increases then the next step is in the same
direction, if decreases then the next step is in the opposite directionAdvantages of
Steptrack systems:
97
relatively cheap
simple to implement
Disadvantages of Steptrack systems:
Stepping results in loss of gain
Easily confused by level changes (e.g. as a result of rain fade)
"Wear and tear" on steering equipment
Monopulse systems. Multimode systems originated from developments in RADAR
technology. Antenna feed is designed so that higher order modes are generated in the feed
when the signal source is off the centre of the antenna beam. Signal processing of the
higher order modes generates pointing error signals used to steer the antenna
Advantages of Monopulse systems include very good accuracy.
Disadvantages include the relatively expensive feeds and recievers.Both steptrack and
monopulse systems need a beacon signal radiated by the satellite.
Improved steptrack (e.g. smoothed steptrack - SST) aims to improve the performance of
steptrack. This combines the elements of programme track and steptrack. It uses normal
steptrack approach to build a "model" of the satellite track. Once an accurate model is
established SST keeps it up to date (under normal circumstances) by sampling every 30
minutes or so. SST thus ignores any random variations which might cause tracking
errors. If the beacon signal is lost altogether (e.g. a beacon transmitter or receiver fails)
then SST can continue to predict the track using the programme track model. If SST
detects a serious departure from the model (e.g. because of an orbit correction) then the
learning process is restarted. Accuracy is claimed to be close to that of monopulse.
The most commonly used methods of multiple access are frequency division
multiple access (FDMA) and time-division multiple access (TDMA). A third category of
99
multiple access is code-division multiple access (CDMA). In this method each signal is
associated with a particular code that is used to spread the signal in frequency and/or
time. All such signals will be received simultaneous at an earth station, but by using the
key to the code, the station can recover the desired signal by means of correlation. The
other signals occupying the transponder channel appear very much like random noise to
the correlation decoder.
Features
FDMA requires high-performing filters in the radio hardware, in contrast to
TDMA and CDMA.
FDMA is not vulnerable to timing problems as TDMA. Since a predetermined
frequency band is available for the entire period of communication, stream data (a
continuous flow of data that may not be packetized) can easily be used with FDMA.
Due to the frequency filtering, FDMA is not sensitive to near-far problem which is
pronounced for CDMA.
It is important to distinguish between FDMA and frequency-division duplexing (FDD).
While FDMA allows multiple users simultaneous access a certain system, FDD refers to
how the radio channel is shared between the uplink and downlink (for instance, the traffic
going back and forth between a mobile-phone and a base-station). Furthermore,
frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) should not be confused with FDMA. The former
is a physical layer technique that combines and transmits low-bandwidth channels
through a high-bandwidth channel. FDMA, on the other hand, is an access method in the
data link layer.
100
TDMA frame structure showing a data stream divided into frames and those frames
divided into time slots.
101
TDMA is a type of Time-division multiplexing, with the special point that instead of
having one transmitter connected to one receiver, there are multiple transmitters. In the
case of the uplink from a mobile phone to a base station this becomes particularly
difficult because the mobile phone can move around and vary the timing advance
required to make its transmission match the gap in transmission from its peers.
TDMA features
Shares single carrier frequency with multiple users
Non-continuous transmission makes handoff simpler
Slots can be assigned on demand in dynamic TDMA
Less stringent power control than CDMA due to reduced intra cell interference
Higher synchronization overhead than CDMA
Advanced equalization is necessary for high data rates
Cell breathing (borrowing resources from adjacent cells) is more complicated than
in CDMA
Frequency/slot allocation complexity
Pulsating power envelop: Interference with other devices
2G systems:
Most 2G cellular systems, with the notable exception of IS-95, are based around TDMA.
GSM, D-AMPS, PDC, iDEN, and PHS are examples of TDMA cellular systems. GSM
combines TDMA with Frequency Hopping and wideband transmission to reduce
interference; this minimizes common types of interference.
In the GSM system, the synchronization of the mobile phones is achieved by sending
timing advance commands from the base station which instructs the mobile phone to
transmit earlier and by how much. This compensates for propagation delay as the speed
of radio waves is the same as light (finite). The mobile phone is not allowed to transmit
for its entire time slot, but there is a guard interval at the end of each time slot. As the
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transmission moves into the guard period, the mobile network adjusts the timing advance
to synchronize the transmission.
Initial synchronization of a phone requires even more care. Before a mobile transmits
there is no way to actually know the offset required. For this reason, an entire time slot
has to be dedicated to mobiles attempting to contact the network (known as the RACH in
GSM). The mobile attempts to broadcast at the beginning of the time slot, as received
from the network. If the mobile is located next to the base station, there will be no time
delay and this will succeed. If, however, the mobile phone is at just less than 35 km from
the base station, the time delay will mean the mobile's broadcast arrives at the very end of
the time slot. In that case, the mobile will be instructed to broadcast its messages starting
nearly a whole time slot earlier than would be expected otherwise. Finally, if the mobile
is beyond the 35 km cell range in GSM, then the RACH will arrive in a neighboring time
slot and be ignored. It is this feature, rather than limitations of power, that limits the range
of a GSM cell to 35 km when no special extension techniques are used. By changing the
synchronization between the uplink and downlink at the base station, however, this
limitation can be overcome.
3G systems:
Although most major 3G systems are primarily based upon CDMA, Time Division
Duplexing (TDD), packet scheduling (dynamic TDMA) and packet oriented multiple
access schemes are available in 3G form, combined with CDMA to take advantage of the
benefits of both technologies.
While the most popular form of the UMTS 3G GSM system uses CDMA instead of
TDMA, TDMA is combined with CDMA and Time Division Duplexing in two standard
UMTS UTRA modes, UTRA TDD-HCR (better known as TD-CDMA), and UTRA
TDD-LCR (better known as TD-SCDMA). In each mode, more than one handset may
share a single time slot. UTRA TDD-HCR is used most commonly by UMTS-TDD to
provide Internet access, whereas UTRA TDD-LCR provides some interoperability with
the forthcoming Chinese 3G standard.
Other networks:
TDMA is used along with FDMA by the Iridium and Thuraya satellite phone networks.
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Dynamic TDMA
In dynamic time division multiple access, a scheduling algorithm dynamically reserves a
variable number of time slots in each frame to variable bit-rate data streams, based on the
traffic demand of each data stream. Dynamic TDMA is used in
HIPERLAN/2 broadband radio access network.
IEEE 802.16a WiMax
Bluetooth
The Packet radio multiple access (PRMA) method for combined circuit switched
voice communication and packet data.
TD-SCDMA
An analogy to the problem of multiple access is a room (channel) in which people wish to
communicate with each other. To avoid confusion, people could take turns speaking (time
division), speak at different pitches (frequency division), or speak in different languages
(code division). CDMA is analogous to the last example where people speaking the same
language can understand each other, but not other people. Similarly, in radio CDMA,
each group of users is given a shared code. Many codes occupy the same channel, but
only users associated with a particular code can understand each other.
Uses
One of the early applications for code division multiplexing—predating,
and distinct from cdmaOne—is in GPS.
The Qualcomm standard IS-95, marketed as cdmaOne.
The Qualcomm standard IS-2000, known as CDMA2000. This standard
is used by several mobile phone companies, including the Globalstar
satellite phone network.
CDMA has been used in the OmniTRACS satellite system for
transportation logistics.
Technical details
CDMA is a spread spectrum multiple access technique. In CDMA a locally generated
code runs at a much higher rate than the data to be transmitted. Data for transmission is
simply logically XOR (exclusive OR) added with the faster code. The figure shows how
spread spectrum signal is generated. The data signal with pulse duration of Tb is XOR
added with the code signal with pulse duration of Tc. (Note: bandwidth is proportional to
1 / T where T = bit time) Therefore, the bandwidth of the data signal is 1 / Tb and the
bandwidth of the spread spectrum signal is 1 / Tc. Since Tc is much smaller than Tb, the
bandwidth of the spread spectrum signal is much larger than the bandwidth of the original
signal.
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Each user in a CDMA system uses a different code to modulate their signal. Choosing the
codes used to modulate the signal is very important in the performance of CDMA
systems. The best performance will occur when there is good separation between the
signal of a desired user and the signals of other users. The separation of the signals is
made by correlating the received signal with the locally generated code of the desired
user. If the signal matches the desired user's code then the correlation function will be
high and the system can extract that signal. If the desired user's code has nothing in
common with the signal the correlation should be as close to zero as possible (thus
eliminating the signal); this is referred to as cross correlation. If the code is correlated
with the signal at any time offset other than zero, the correlation should be as close to
zero as possible. This is referred to as auto-correlation and is used to reject multi-path
interference. [2]
In general, CDMA belongs to two basic categories: synchronous (orthogonal codes) and
asynchronous (pseudorandom codes).
said to beorthogonal to each other. (Note: If u=(a,b) and v=(c,d), the dot product u.v =
a*c + b*d) Some properties of the dot product help to understand how W-CDMA works.
If vectors a and bare orthogonal, then
Each user in synchronous CDMA uses an orthogonal codes to modulate their signal. An
example of four mutually orthogonal digital signals is shown in the figure. Orthogonal
codes have a cross-correlation equal to zero; in other words, they do not interfere with
each other. In the case of IS-95 64 bit Walsh codes are used to encode the signal to
separate different users. Since each of the 64 Walsh codes are orthogonal to one another,
the signals are channelized into 64 orthogonal signals. The following example
demonstrates how each users signal can be encoded and decoded.
Example:
Start with a set of vectors that are mutually orthogonal. (Although mutual orthogonality is
the only condition, these vectors are usually constructed for ease of decoding, for
example columns or rows from Walsh matrices.) An example of orthogonal functions is
shown in the picture on the left. These vectors will be assigned to individual users and are
called the "code", "chipping code" or "chip code". In the interest of brevity, the rest of
this example uses codes (v) with only 2 digits.
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Because signal0 and signal1 are transmitted at the same time into the air, they add to
produce the raw signal:(1,–1,–1,1,1,–1,1,–1) + (–1,–1,–1,–1,1,1,1,1) = (0,–2,–2,0,2,0,2,0)
This raw signal is called an interference pattern. The receiver then extracts an intelligible signal for any
known sender by combining the sender's code with the interference pattern, the receiver combines it
with the codes of the senders. The following table explains how this works and shows that the signals do
not interfer with one another:
Step Decode sender0 Decode sender1
0 vector0=(1,–1), pattern=(0,–2,–2,0,2,0,2,0) vector1=(1,1), pattern=(0,–2,–2,0,2,0,2,0)
1 decode0=pattern.vector0 decode1=pattern.vector1
2 decode0=((0,–2),(–2,0),(2,0),(2,0)).(1,–1) decode1=((0,–2),(–2,0),(2,0),(2,0)).(1,1)
3 decode0=((0+2),(–2+0),(2+0),(2+0)) decode1=((0–2),(–2+0),(2+0),(2+0))
4 data0=(2,–2,2,2)=(1,0,1,1) data1=(–2,–2,2,2)=(0,0,1,1)
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Further, after decoding, all values greater than 0 are interpreted as 1 while all values less
than zero are interpreted as 0. For example, after decoding, data0 is (2,–2,2,2), but the
receiver interprets this as (1,0,1,1).
We can also consider what would happen if a receiver tries to decode a signal when the user has not sent
any information. Assume signal0=(1,-1,-1,1,1,-1,1,-1) is transmitted alone. The following table shows
the decode at the receiver:
Step Decode sender0 Decode sender1
0 vector0=(1,–1), pattern=(1,-1,-1,1,1,-1,1,-1) vector1=(1,1), pattern=(1,-1,-1,1,1,-1,1,-1)
1 decode0=pattern.vector0 decode1=pattern.vector1
2 decode0=((1,–1),(–1,1),(1,-1),(1,-1)).(1,–1) decode1=((1,–1),(–1,1),(1,-1),(1,-1)).(1,1)
3 decode0=((1+1),(–1-1),(1+1),(1+1)) decode1=((1–1),(–1+1),(1-1),(1-1))
4 data0=(2,–2,2,2)=(1,0,1,1) data1=(0,0,0,0)
When the receiver attempts to decode the signal using sender1’s code, the data is all
zeros, therefore the cross correlation is equal to zero and it is clear that sender1 did not
transmit any data.
Asynchronous CDMA:
The previous example of orthogonal Walsh sequences describes how 2 users can be
multiplexed together in a synchronous system, a technique that is commonly referred to
as Code Division Multiplexing (CDM). The set of 4 Walsh sequences shown in the figure
will afford up to 4 users, and in general, an NxN Walsh matrix can be used to multiplex N
users. Multiplexing requires all of the users to be coordinated so that each transmits their
assigned sequence v (or the complement, -v) starting at exactly the same time. Thus, this
technique finds use in base-to-mobile links, where all of the transmissions originate from
the same transmitter and can be perfectly coordinated.
On the other hand, the mobile-to-base links cannot be precisely coordinated,
particularly due to the mobility of the handsets, and require a somewhat different
approach. Since it is not mathematically possible to create signature sequences that are
orthogonal for arbitrarily random starting points, unique "pseudo-random" or "pseudo-
noise" (PN) sequences are used in Asynchronous CDMA systems. A PN code is a binary
sequence that appears random but can be reproduced in a deterministic manner by
intended receivers. These PN codes are used to encode and decode a users signal in
Asynchronous CDMA in the same manner as the orthogonal codes in synchrous CDMA
(shown in the example above). These PN sequences are statistically uncorrelated, and the
sum of a large number of PN sequences results in Multiple Access Interference (MAI)
that is approximated by a Gaussian noise process (following the "central limit theorem"
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in statistics). If all of the users are received with the same power level, then the variance
(e.g., the noise power) of the MAI increases in direct proportion to the number of users.
In other words, unlike synchronous CDMA, the signals of other users will appear as noise
to the signal of interest and interfere slightly with the desired signal in proportion to
number of users.
All forms of CDMA use spread spectrum process gain to allow receivers
to partially discriminate against unwanted signals. Signals encoded with the
specified PN sequence (code) are received, while signals with different codes
(or the same code but a different timing offset) appear as wideband noise
reduced by the process gain.
Since each user generates MAI, controlling the signal strength is an
important issue with CDMA transmitters. A CDM (Synchronous CDMA),
TDMA or FDMA receiver can in theory completely reject arbitrarily strong
signals using different codes, time slots or frequency channels due to the
orthogonality of these systems. This is not true for Asynchronous CDMA;
rejection of unwanted signals is only partial. If any or all of the unwanted
signals are much stronger than the desired signal, they will overwhelm it. This
leads to a general requirement in any Asynchronous CDMA system to
approximately match the various signal power levels as seen at the receiver. In
CDMA cellular, the base station uses a fast closed-loop power control scheme
to tightly control each mobile's transmit power. See Near-far problem for
further information on this problem.
adjacent channels, due to the random doppler shift of the signal spectrum which occurs
due to the user's mobility. The guard-bands will reduce the probability that adjacent
channels will interfere, but decrease the utilization of the spectrum.
Most importantly, Asynchronous CDMA offers a key advantage in the flexible
allocation of resources. There are a fixed number of orthogonal codes, timeslots or
frequency bands that can be allocated for CDM, TDMA and FDMA systems, which
remain underutilized due to the bursty nature of telephony and packetized data
transmissions. There is no strict limit to the number of users that can be supported in an
Asynchronous CDMA system, only a practical limit governed by the desired bit error
probability, since the SIR (Signal to Interference Ratio) varies inversely with the number
of users. In a bursty traffic environment like mobile telephony, the advantage afforded by
Asynchronous CDMA is that the performance (bit error rate) is allowed to fluctuate
randomly, with an average value determined by the number of users times the percentage
of utilization. Suppose there are 2N users that only talk half of the time, then 2N users
can be accommodated with the same average bit error probability as N users that talk all
of the time. The key difference here is that the bit error probability for N users talking all
of the time is constant, whereas it is a random quantity (with the same mean) for 2N users
talking half of the time.
In other words, Asynchronous CDMA is ideally suited to a mobile network where
large numbers of transmitters each generate a relatively small amount of traffic at
irregular intervals. CDM (Synchronous CDMA), TDMA and FDMA systems cannot
recover the underutilized resources inherent to bursty traffic due to the fixed number of
orthogonal codes, time slots or frequency channels that can be assigned to individual
transmitters. For instance, if there are N time slots in a TDMA system and 2N users that
talk half of the time, then half of the time there will be more than N users needing to use
more than N timeslots. Furthermore, it would require significant overhead to continually
allocate and deallocate the orthogonal code, time-slot or frequency channel resources. By
comparison, Asynchronous CDMA transmitters simply send when they have something
to say, and go off the air when they don't, keeping the same PN signature sequence as
long as they are connected to the system.
bandwidth that is several orders of magnitude greater then the minimum required signal
bandwidth. One of the initial reasons for doing this was military applications including
guidance and communication systems. These systems were designed using spread
spectrum because of its security and resistance to jamming. Asynchronous CDMA has
some level of privacy built in because the signal is spread using a pseudorandom code;
this code makes the spread spectrum signals appear random or have noise-like properties.
A receiver cannot demodulate this transmission without knowledge of the pseudorandom
sequence used to encode the data. CDMA is also resistant to jamming. A jamming signal
only has a finite amount of power available to jam the signal. The jammer can either
spread its energy over the entire bandwidth of the signal or jam only part of the entire
signal.
CDMA can also effectively reject narrowband interference. Since narrowband
interference affects only a small portion of the spread spectrum signal, it can easily be
removed through notch filtering without much loss of information. Convolution encoding
and interleaving can be used to assist in recovering this lost data. CDMA signals are also
resistant to multipath fading. Since the spread spectrum signal occupies a large
bandwidth only a small portion of this will undergo fading due to multipath at any given
time. Like the narrowband interference this will result in only a small loss of data and can
be overcome.
Another reason CDMA is resistant to multipath interference is because the delayed
versions of the transmitted pseudorandom codes will have poor correlation with the
original pseudorandom code, and will thus appear as another user, which is ignored at the
receiver. In other words, as long as the multipath channel induces at least one chip of
delay, the multipath signals will arrive at the receiver such that they are shifted in time by
at least one chip from the intended signal. The correlation properties of the
pseudorandom codes are such that this slight delay causes the multipath to appear
uncorrelated with the intended signal, and it is thus ignored.
Some CDMA devices use a rake receiver, which exploits multipath delay
components to improve the performance of the system. A rake receiver combines the
information from several correlators, each one tuned to a different path delay, producing a
stronger version of the signal than a simple receiver with a single correlator tuned to the
path delay of the strongest signal.
Frequency reuse is the ability to reuse the same radio channel frequency at other
cell sites within a cellular system. In the FDMA and TDMA systems frequency planning
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Introduction:
Satellites provide broadcast transmission in the fullest sense of the word, because
antenna footprints can be made to cover large areas of the earth. The idea of using
satellites to provide direct transmissions into the home has been around for many years,
and the services provided are known generally as direct broadcast satellite (DBS)
services. Broadcast services include audio, television, and Internet services. Direct
broadcast satellite (DBS) refers to satellite television (TV) systems in which the
subscribers, or end users, receive signals directly from geostationary satellites. Signals
are broadcast in digital format at microwave frequencies. DBS is the descendant of
direct-to-home (DTH) satellite services.
A DBS subscriber installation consists of a dish antenna two to three feet (60 to 90
centimeters) in diameter, a conventional TV set, a signal converter placed next to the TV
set, and a length of coaxial cable between the dish and the converter. The dish intercepts
microwave signals directly from the satellite. The converter produces output that can be
viewed on the TV receiver. The expression direct-to-home or DTH was, initially, meant
to distinguish the transmissions directly intended for home viewers from cable television
distribution services that sometimes carried on the same satellite. The term predates DBS
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satellites and is often used in reference to services carried by lower power satellites which
required larger dishes (1.7 diameter or greater) for reception.
A number of companies provide DBS and DTH service throughout the world. In
the United States, DirecTV and EchoStar are the main vendors. Both of these
corporations also provide satellite Internet service, which can be purchased for a monthly
fee in addition to, or instead of, DBS TV service. In Canada, StarChoice and ExpressVu
provide digital satellite TV for home users. Satellite-based TV and Internet services are
popular in rural areas where conventional cable service is not available. DBS TV is also
favored by urban and suburban subscribers who are not satisfied with the quality or
quantity of TV programming available on conventional cable. In Europe, the expression
was common prior to the launch of ASTRA-1 in 1988 as there were two markets: the
DTH market which required the larger dishes and the DBS (ASTRA) market which
required smaller (0.9m dishes). As higher powered satellites like ASTRA came into
operation, the initialism DBS gradually supplanted it.
Terminology confusion
As a technical matter, DBS (also known by the International Telecommunications
Union as Broadcasting Satellite Service, or BSS) refers only to services transmitted by
satellite in specific frequency bands: 11.7-12.2 GHz in ITU Region 3 (Asia, Australia),
10.7 - 12.75 GHz in ITU Region 1 (Europe, Russia, Africa), and 12.2-12.7 GHz ITU
Region 2 (North and South America). In 1977, the ITU adopted an international BSS Plan
under which each country was allocated specific frequencies at specific orbital locations
for domestic service. Over the years, this plan has been modified to, for example,
accommodate new countries, increase coverage areas, and reflect digital (rather than
analog) technology. At present, only a relative handful of countries have actually brought
into use any of their BSS Plan allocations.
By contrast, DTH can apply to similar services transmitted over a wider range of
frequencies (including standard Ku-band and Ka-band) transmitted from satellites that are
not part of any internationally planned band. Nonetheless, the term DBS is often used
interchangeably with DTH to cover both analog and digital video and audio services
(including video-on-demand and interactive features) received by relatively small dishes
(less than 1 meter). A "DBS service" usually refers to either a commercial service, or a
group of free channels available from one orbital position targeting one country. In
certain regions of the world, especially in North America, DBS is used to refer to
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providers of subscription satellite packages, and has become applied to the entire
equipment chain involved.
PrimeStar began transmitting an analog service to North America in 1991, and was
joined by DirecTV (then owned by a division of General Motors, GM Hughes
Electronics), in 1994. At the time, DirecTV's introduction was the most successful
consumer electronics debut in American history. Although PrimeStar transitioned to a
digital system in 1994, it was ultimately unable to compete with DirecTV, which required
a smaller satellite dish and could deliver more programming. DirecTV purchased
PrimeStar in 1999 and moved all PrimeStar subscribers to DirecTV equipment. In a
series of transactions consummated in 2003, Hughes Electronics was spun out of GM and
the News Corporation purchased a controlling interest in the new company, which was
renamed The DIRECTV Group. In 2008, Liberty Media Corporation purchased News
Corporation's controlling interest in DIRECTV.
In 1996, EchoStar's Dish Network went online in the United States and, as
DirecTV's primary competitor, achieved similar success. AlphaStar also started but soon
went under. Astro was also started, using a direct broadcast satellite system.
Dominion Video Satellite Inc.'s Sky Angel also went online in the United States in
1996 with its DBS service geared toward the faith and family market. It has since grown
from six to 36 TV and radio channels of family entertainment, Christian-inspirational
programming, and 24-hour news. Dominion, under its former corporate name Video
Satellite Systems Inc., was actually the second from among the first nine companies to
apply to the FCC for a high-power DBS license in 1981, and it is the sole surviving DBS
pioneer from that first round of forward-thinking applicants. Sky Angel, although a
separate and independent DBS service, uses the same satellites, transmission facilities, &
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receiving equipment used for Dish Network through an agreement with Echostar.
Because of this, Sky Angel subscribers also have the option of subscribing to Dish
Network's channels as well.
In 2003, EchoStar attempted to purchase DirecTV, but the FCC and U.S.
Department of Justice denied the purchase based on anti-competitive concerns.
The United Kingdom has approximately 90 free-to-air digital channels, for which a
promotional and marketing plan is being devised by the BBC and ITV, to be sold as
"Freesat". It is intended to provide a multi-channel service for areas which cannot receive
Freeview, and eventually replace their network of UHF repeaters in these areas
While originally launched as backhaul for their digital terrestrial television service,
a large number of French channels are free-to-air on 5W, and have recently been
announced as being official in-fill for the DTT network.
In North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) there are over 80 FTA digital channels
available on Intelsat Americas 5. (The majority of them are ethnic or religious.) Other
popular FTA satellites include AMC-4, AMC-6, Galaxy 10R, and SatMex 5. A company
called GloryStar promotes FTA religious broadcasters on IA-5 and AMC-4
An alternative to pre-assignment is demand-assigned multiple access (DAMA). In
this method, all circuits are available to all users and are assigned according to the
demand. DAMA results in more efficient overall use of the circuits but is more costly and
complicated to implement.
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After Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down in 1983 after straying into the
USSR's prohibited airspace, President Ronald Reagan issued a directive making GPS
freely available for civilian use as a common good. Since then, GPS has become a widely
used aid to navigation worldwide, and a useful tool for map-making, land surveying,
commerce, scientific uses, and hobbies such as geocaching. Also, the precise time
reference is used in many applications including scientific study of earthquakes, and
synchronization of telecommunications networks.
The first satellite navigation system, Transit, used by the United States Navy, was
first successfully tested in 1960. Using a constellation of five satellites, it could provide a
navigational fix approximately once per hour. In 1967, the U.S. Navy developed the
Timation satellite which proved the ability to place accurate clocks in space, a technology
that GPS relies upon. In the 1970s, the ground-based Omega Navigation System, based
on signal phase comparison, became the first worldwide radio navigation system. The
design of GPS is based partly on similar ground-based radio navigation systems, such as
LORAN and the Decca Navigator developed in the early 1940s, and used during World
War II. Additional inspiration for the GPS came when the Soviet Union launched the first
Sputnik in 1957. A team of U.S. scientists led by Dr. Richard B. Kershner were
monitoring Sputnik's radio transmissions. They discovered that, because of the Doppler
effect, the frequency of the signal being transmitted by Sputnik was higher as the satellite
approached, and lower as it continued away from them. They realized that since they
knew their exact location on the globe, they could pinpoint where the satellite was along
its orbit by measuring the Doppler distortion.
Basic concept of GPS
A GPS receiver calculates its position by carefully timing the signals sent by the
GPS satellites high above the Earth. Each satellite continually transmits messages
containing the time the message was sent, precise orbital information (the ephemeris),
and the general system health and rough orbits of all GPS satellites (the almanac). The
receiver measures the transit time of each message and computes the distance to each
satellite. Geometric trilateration is used to combine these distances with the location of
the satellites to determine the receiver's location. The position is displayed, perhaps with
a moving map display or latitude and longitude; elevation information may be included.
Many GPS units also show derived information such as direction and speed, calculated
from position changes.
It might seem three satellites are enough to solve for position, since space has three
dimensions. However a very small clock error times the very large speed of light—the
speed at which satellite signals propagate—results in a large positional error. The receiver
uses a fourth satellite to solve for x, y, z, and t which is used to correct the receiver's
clock. While most GPS applications use the computed location only and effectively hide
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the very accurately computed time, it is used in a few specialized GPS applications such
as time transfer and traffic signal timing.
Although four satellites are required for normal operation, fewer apply in special
cases. If one variable is already known (for example, a ship or plane may have known
elevation), a receiver can determine its position using only three satellites. Some GPS
receivers may use additional clues or assumptions (such as reusing the last known
altitude, dead reckoning, inertial navigation, or including information from the vehicle
computer) to give a degraded position when fewer than four satellites are visible.
Position calculation introduction
To provide an introductory description of how a GPS receiver works, measurement
errors will be ignored in this section. Using messages received from a minimum of four
visible satellites, a GPS receiver is able to determine the satellite positions and time sent.
The x, y, and z components of position and the time sent are designated as
where the subscript i is the satellite number and has the value 1, 2, 3, or 4. Knowing the
indicated time the message was received , the GPS receiver can compute the indicated
transit time, . of the message. Assuming the message traveled at the speed of
light, c, the distance traveled, can be computed as . Knowing the distance
from GPS receiver to a satellite and the position of a satellite implies that the GPS
receiver is on the surface of a sphere centered at the position of a satellite. Thus we know
that the indicated position of the GPS receiver is at or near the intersection of the surfaces
of four spheres. In the ideal case of no errors, the GPS receiver will be at an intersection
of the surfaces of four spheres. The surfaces of two spheres, if they intersect in more than
one point, intersect in a circle. A figure, Two Sphere Surfaces Intersecting in a Circle, is
shown below. Two points at which the surfaces of the spheres intersect are clearly shown
in the figure. The distance between these two points is the diameter of the circle of
intersection.
Surface of a sphere intersecting a circle (i.e., the edge of a disk) at two points
A circle and sphere surface in most cases of practical interest intersect at two points,
although it is conceivable that they could intersect at one point—or not at all. Another
figure, Surface of Sphere Intersecting a Circle (not disk) at Two Points, shows this
intersection. The two intersections are marked with dots. Again trilateration clearly shows
this mathematically. The correct position of the GPS receiver is the intersection that is
closest to the surface of the earth for automobiles and other near-Earth vehicles. The
correct position of the GPS receiver is also the intersection which is closest to the surface
of the sphere corresponding to the fourth satellite. (The two intersections are symmetrical
with respect to the plane containing the three satellites. If the three satellites are not in the
same orbital plane, the plane containing the three satellites will not be a vertical plane
passing through the center of the Earth. In this case one of the intersections will be closer
to the earth than the other. The near-Earth intersection will be the correct position for the
case of a near-Earth vehicle. The intersection which is farthest from Earth, may be the
correct position for space vehicles.)
Correcting a GPS receiver's clock
The method of calculating position for the case of no errors has been explained.
One of the most significant error sources is the GPS receiver's clock. Because of the very
large value of the speed of light, c, the estimated distances from the GPS receiver to the
satellites, the pseudoranges, are very sensitive to errors in the GPS receiver clock. This
suggests that an extremely accurate and expensive clock is required for the GPS receiver
to work. On the other hand, manufacturers prefer to build inexpensive GPS receivers for
mass markets. The solution for this dilemma is based on the way sphere surfaces intersect
in the GPS problem.
It is likely the surfaces of the three spheres intersect since the circle of intersection
of the first two spheres is normally quite large and thus the third sphere surface is likely
to intersect this large circle. It is very unlikely that the surface of the sphere
corresponding to the fourth satellite will intersect either of the two points of intersection
of the first three since any clock error could cause it to miss intersecting a point. However
the distance from the valid estimate of GPS receiver position to the surface of the sphere
corresponding to the fourth satellite can be used to compute a clock correction. Let
denote the distance from the valid estimate of GPS receiver position to the fourth satellite
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and let denote the pseudorange of the fourth satellite. Let . Note that is
the distance from the computed GPS receiver position to the surface of the sphere
corresponding to the fourth satellite. Thus the quotient, , provides an estimate
of
System segmentation
The current GPS consists of three major segments. These are the space segment (SS), a
control segment (CS), and a user segment (US).
Space segment
GPS receivers.
Control segment
User segment
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Navigation signals
having an almanac is no longer an issue. The second purpose is for relating time derived
from the GPS (called GPS time) to the international time standard of UTC. Finally, the
almanac allows a single-frequency receiver to correct for ionospheric error by using a
global ionospheric model. The corrections are not as accurate as augmentation systems
like WAAS or dual-frequency receivers. However, it is often better than no correction,
since ionospheric error is the largest error source for a single-frequency GPS receiver. An
important thing to note about navigation data is that each satellite transmits not only its
own ephemeris, but transmits an almanac for all satellites.
All satellites broadcast at the same two frequencies, 1.57542 GHz (L1 signal) and
1.2276 GHz (L2 signal). The receiver can distinguish the signals from different satellites
because GPS uses a code division multiple access (CDMA) spread-spectrum technique
where the low-bitrate message data is encoded with a high-rate pseudo-random (PRN)
sequence that is different for each satellite. The receiver knows the PRN codes for each
satellite and can use this to reconstruct the actual message data. The message data is
transmitted at 50 bits per second. Two distinct CDMA encodings are used: the
coarse/acquisition (C/A) code (a so-called Gold code) at 1.023 million chips per second,
and the precise (P) code at 10.23 million chips per second. The L1 carrier is modulated
by both the C/A and P codes, while the L2 carrier is only modulated by the P code. The
C/A code is public and used by civilian GPS receivers, while the P code can be encrypted
as a so-called P(Y) code which is only available to military equipment with a proper
decryption key. Both the C/A and P(Y) codes impart the precise time-of-day to the user.
Satellite frequencies
L1 (1575.42 MHz): Mix of Navigation Message, coarse-acquisition (C/A) code
and encrypted precision P(Y) code, plus the new L1C on future Block III satellites.
L2 (1227.60 MHz): P(Y) code, plus the new L2C code on the Block IIR-M and
newer satellites.
L3 (1381.05 MHz): Used by the Nuclear Detonation (NUDET) Detection System
Payload (NDS) to signal detection of nuclear detonations and other high-energy
infrared events. Used to enforce nuclear test ban treaties.
L4 (1379.913 MHz): Being studied for additional ionospheric correction.
L5 (1176.45 MHz): Proposed for use as a civilian safety-of-life (SoL) signal (see
GPS modernization). This frequency falls into an internationally protected range
for aeronautical navigation, promising little or no interference under all
circumstances. The first Block IIF satellite that would provide this signal is set to
be launched in 2009.
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Demodulating and Decoding GPS Satellite Signals using the Coarse/Acquisition Gold
code.
Since all of the satellite signals are modulated onto the same L1 carrier frequency, there is
a need to separate the signals after demodulation. This is done by assigning each satellite
a unique pseudorandom sequence known as a Gold code, and the signals are decoded,
after demodulation, using modulo 2 addition of the Gold codes corresponding to satellites
n1 through nk, where k is the number of channels in the GPS receiver and n1 through nk
are the pseudorandom numbers associated with the satellites. The result of these modulo
2 additions are the 50 bps navigation messages from satellites n1 through nk. The Gold
codes used in GPS are a sequence of 1023 bits with a period of one millisecond. These
Gold codes are highly mutually orthogonal, so that it is unlikely that one satellite signal
will be misinterpreted as another. As well, the Gold codes have good auto-correlation
properties..
There are 1025 different Gold codes of length 1023 bits, but only 32 are used. These
Gold codes are quite often referred to as "pseudo-random noise" since they contain no
data. However, this may be misleading since they are actually deterministic sequences.
If the almanac information has previously been acquired, the receiver picks which
satellites to listen for by their PRN numbers. If the almanac information is not in
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memory, the receiver enters a search mode and cycles through the PRN numbers until a
lock is obtained on one of the satellites. To obtain a lock, it is necessary that there be an
unobstructed line of sight from the receiver to the satellite. The receiver can then acquire
the almanac and determine the satellites it should listen for. As it detects each satellite's
signal, it identifies it by its distinct C/A code pattern.
For each satellite to which it listens, the receiver must calculate the time the message was
sent. In accomplishing this it is useful to know that the transmission of each 30 second
navigation message frame begins precisely on the minute or half minute as indicated by
the satellite's atomic clock according to Satellite message format.
Knowing this, the receiver must correlate in time the message from each satellite. As a
first step in doing this, the receiver uses the C/A Gold code with the same PRN number as
the satellite to compute an offset from the time sent that generates the best correlation.
Call this offset, O. The offset, O, may not correspond with the begining of a 20
millisecond bit of the navigation message. An offset which cooresponds with the
beginning of a 20 millisecond bit of the navigation message differs from O by an
approximately integral number of milliseconds since the satellite repeats the broadcast of
the PRN sequence each millisecond. The offset, O, is computed in a trial and error
manner. The 1023 bits of the satellite PRN signal are compared with the receiver PRN
signal. If correlation is not achieved, the 1023 bits of the satellite's PRN code is shifted
by one bit relative to the receiver's internally generated PRN code and again compared
with this signal. This process is repeated until correlation is achieved.
Since the carrier frequency received can vary due to Doppler shift, the points where
received PRN sequences begin may not differ from O by an exact integral number of
milliseconds. Because of this, carrier frequency tracking along with PRN code phase
tracking are used to determine when the received satellite's PRN code begins. As the
receiver continues to read successive PRN sequences, it will encounter a sudden change
in the phase of the 1023 bit received PRN signal. This indicates the beginning of a data
bit of the navigation message. This enables the receiver to begin reading the 20
millisecond bits of the navigation message. Each subframe of the navigation frame begins
with a Telemetry Word which enables the receiver to detect the beginning of a subframe
and determine the receiver clock time at which the navigation subframe begins. Also each
subframe of the navigation frame is identified by bits in the Handover Word (HOW)
thereby enabling the receiver to determine which subframe. Thus upon reading this
information, the receiver can begin interpreting the navigation message.
The time the message was sent can be calculated using the information obtained from the
navigation message. The receiver knows the receiver clock time of when the beginning of
the navigation message was received from the Telemetry Word, Handover Word, and
knowledge of message format. The receiver knows that the message was sent
approximately .065 seconds before it was received. This is true since ( (orbital radius) -
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Surface of a sphere intersecting a circle (i.e., the edge of a disk) at two points
Let denote the clock error or bias, the amount by which the receiver's clock is slow. The
GPS receiver has four unknowns, the three components of GPS receiver position and the
clock bias . The equation of the sphere surfaces are given by
Another useful
form of these equations is in terms of the pseudoranges, which are simply the ranges
approximated based on GPS receiver clock's indicated (i.e. uncorrected) time so that
. Then the equations becomes:
The receiver can solve by trilateration followed by one dimensional numerical root
finding.This method involves using Trilateration to determine the intersection of
the surfaces of three spheres. It is clearly shown in trilateration that the surfaces of
three spheres intersect in 0, 1, or 2 points. In the usual case of two intersections,
the solution which is nearest the surface of the sphere corresponding to the fourth
satellite is chosen. The surface of the earth can also sometimes be used instead,
especially in the case of civilian GPS receivers since it is illegal in the United
States to track vehicles of more than 60,000 feet in altitude. The bias, is then
computed based on the distance from the solution to the surface of the sphere
corresponding to the fourth satellite. Using an updated received time based on this
bias, new spheres are computed and the process is repeated. One advantage of this
method is that it involves one dimensional as opposed to multidimensional
numerical root finding.
The receiver can utilize multidimensional Newton-Raphson calculations.Linearize
around an approximate solution, say from iteration k, then
solve four linear equations derived from the quadratic equations above to obtain
. The radii are large and so the sphere surfaces are close to flat. This near
is near the correct value
flatness may cause the iterative procedure to converge rapidly in the case where
and the primary change is in the values of , since in this case the
problem is merely to find the intersection of nearly flat surfaces and thus close to a
linear problem. However when is changing significantly, this near flatness does
not appear to be advantageous in producing rapid convergence, since in this case
these near flat surfaces will be moving as the spheres expand and contract. This
possible fast convergence is an advantage of this method. Also it has been claimed
that this method is the "typical" method used by GPS receivers.A disadvantage of
this method is that according to"There are no good general methods for solving
systems of more than one nonlinear equations." For a more detailed description of
the mathematics see Multidimensional Newton Raphson.
Other methods include:
1. Solving for the intersection of the expanding signals form light cones in 4-space
cones
2. Solving for the intersection of hyperboloids determined by the time difference of
signals received from satellites utilizing multilateration,
3. Solving the equations in accordance with .
More than four satellites should be used, if available. This results in an over-
determined system of equations with no unique solution, which must be solved by
least-squares or a similar technique. If all visible satellites are used, the results are
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always at least as good as using the four best, and usually better. Also the errors in
results can be estimated through the residuals.With each combination of four or
more satellites, a geometric dilution of precision (GDOP) vector can be calculated,
based on the relative sky positions of the satellites used. As more satellites are
picked up, pseudoranges from more combinations of four satellites can be
processed to add more estimates to the location and clock offset. The receiver then
determines which combinations to use and how to calculate the estimated position
by determining the weighted average of these positions and clock offsets. After the
final location and time are calculated, the location is expressed in a specific
coordinate system such as latitude and longitude, using the WGS 84 geodetic
datum or a local system specific to a country.
Finally, results from other positioning systems such as GLONASS or the upcoming
Galileo can be used in the fit, or used to double check the result. (By design, these
systems use the same bands, so much of the receiver circuitry can be shared, though the
decoding is different.)
P(Y) code
Calculating a position with the P(Y) signal is generally similar in concept, assuming one
can decrypt it. The encryption is essentially a safety mechanism: if a signal can be
successfully decrypted, it is reasonable to assume it is a real signal being sent by a GPS
satellite. In comparison, civil receivers are highly vulnerable to spoofing since correctly
formatted C/A signals can be generated using readily available signal generators. RAIM
features do not protect against spoofing, since RAIM only checks the signals from a
navigational perspective.
Error sources
Source Effect
received signal. The position accuracy is primarily dependent on the satellite position and
signal delay.
To measure the delay, the receiver compares the bit sequence received from the satellite
with an internally generated version. By comparing the rising and trailing edges of the bit
transitions, modern electronics can measure signal offset to within about one percent of a
bit time, or approximately 10 nanoseconds for the C/A code. Since GPS signals propagate
at the speed of light, this represents an error of about 3 meters.
Position accuracy can be improved by using the higher-chiprate P(Y) signal. Assuming
the same one percent bit time accuracy, the high-frequency P(Y) signal results in an
accuracy of about 30 centimeters.
Electronics errors are one of several accuracy-degrading effects outlined in the table
above. When taken together, autonomous civilian GPS horizontal position fixes are
typically accurate to about 15 meters (50 ft). These effects also reduce the more precise
P(Y) code's accuracy. However, the advancement of technology means that today, civilian
GPS fixes under a clear view of the sky are on average accurate to about 5 meters (16 ft)
horizontally.
Atmospheric effects
Inconsistencies of atmospheric conditions affect the speed of the GPS signals as they pass
through the Earth's atmosphere, especially the ionosphere. Correcting these errors is a
significant challenge to improving GPS position accuracy. These effects are smallest
when the satellite is directly overhead and become greater for satellites nearer the horizon
since the path through the atmosphere is longer (see airmass). Once the receiver's
approximate location is known, a mathematical model can be used to estimate and
compensate for these errors.
Because ionospheric delay affects the speed of microwave signals differently depending
on their frequency — a characteristic known as dispersion - delays measured on two or
more frequency bands can be used to measure dispersion, and this measurement can then
be used to estimate the delay at each frequency. Some military and expensive survey-
grade civilian receivers measure the different delays in the L1 and L2 frequencies to
measure atmospheric dispersion, and apply a more precise correction. This can be done in
civilian receivers without decrypting the P(Y) signal carried on L2, by tracking the carrier
wave instead of the modulated code. To facilitate this on lower cost receivers, a new
civilian code signal on L2, called L2C, was added to the Block IIR-M satellites, which
was first launched in 2005. It allows a direct comparison of the L1 and L2 signals using
the coded signal instead of the carrier wave.
The effects of the ionosphere generally change slowly, and can be averaged over time.
The effects for any particular geographical area can be easily calculated by comparing the
GPS-measured position to a known surveyed location. This correction is also valid for
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other receivers in the same general location. Several systems send this information over
radio or other links to allow L1-only receivers to make ionospheric corrections. The
ionospheric data are transmitted via satellite in Satellite Based Augmentation Systems
(SBAS) such as WAAS (available in North America and Hawaii), EGNOS (Europe and
Asia) or MSAS (Japan), which transmits it on the GPS frequency using a special pseudo-
random noise sequence (PRN), so only one receiver and antenna are required.
Humidity also causes a variable delay, resulting in errors similar to ionospheric delay, but
occurring in the troposphere. This effect both is more localized and changes more quickly
than ionospheric effects, and is not frequency dependent. These traits make precise
measurement and compensation of humidity errors more difficult than ionospheric
effects.
Changes in receiver altitude also change the amount of delay, due to the signal passing
through less of the atmosphere at higher elevations. Since the GPS receiver computes its
approximate altitude, this error is relatively simple to correct, either by applying a
function regression or correlating margin of atmospheric error to ambient pressure using
a barometric altimeter.
Multipath effects
GPS signals can also be affected by multipath issues, where the radio signals reflect off
surrounding terrain; buildings, canyon walls, hard ground, etc. These delayed signals can
cause inaccuracy. A variety of techniques, most notably narrow correlator spacing, have
been developed to mitigate multipath errors. For long delay multipath, the receiver itself
can recognize the wayward signal and discard it. To address shorter delay multipath from
the signal reflecting off the ground, specialized antennas (e.g. a choke ring antenna) may
be used to reduce the signal power as received by the antenna. Short delay reflections are
harder to filter out because they interfere with the true signal, causing effects almost
indistinguishable from routine fluctuations in atmospheric delay.
Multipath effects are much less severe in moving vehicles. When the GPS antenna is
moving, the false solutions using reflected signals quickly fail to converge and only the
direct signals result in stable solutions.
Ephemeris and clock errors
While the ephemeris data is transmitted every 30 seconds, the information itself may be
up to two hours old. Data up to four hours old is considered valid for calculating
positions, but may not indicate the satellite's actual position. If a fast TTFF is needed, it is
possible to upload valid ephemeris to a receiver, and in addition to setting the time, a
position fix can be obtained in under ten seconds. It is feasible to put such ephemeris data
on the web so it can be loaded into mobile GPS devices. See also Assisted GPS.
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The satellite's atomic clocks experience noise and clock drift errors. The navigation
message contains corrections for these errors and estimates of the accuracy of the atomic
clock. However, they are based on observations and may not indicate the clock's current
state.
These problems tend to be very small, but may add up to a few meters (10s of feet) of
inaccuracy.
Relativity
Satellite clocks are slowed by its orbital speed but sped up by its distance out of the
earth's gravitational well.
According to the theory of relativity, due to their constant movement and height relative
to the Earth-centered inertial reference frame, the clocks on the satellites are affected by
their speed (special relativity) as well as their gravitational potential (general relativity).
For the GPS satellites, general relativity predicts that the atomic clocks at GPS orbital
altitudes will tick more rapidly, by about 45.9 microseconds (μs) per day, because they
have a higher gravitational potential than atomic clocks on Earth's surface. Special
relativity predicts that atomic clocks moving at GPS orbital speeds will tick more slowly
than stationary ground clocks by about 7.2 μs per day. When combined, the discrepancy
is about 38 microseconds per day; a difference of 4.465 parts in 1010. To account for this,
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the frequency standard on board each satellite is given a rate offset prior to launch,
making it run slightly slower than the desired frequency on Earth; specifically, at
10.22999999543 MHz instead of 10.23 MHz. Since the atomic clocks on board the GPS
satellites are precisely tuned, it makes the system a practical engineering application of
the scientific theory of relativity in a real-world environment. To put atomic clocks on
artificial satellites as a means to test Einstein's general theory was first proposed by
Winterberg in 1955.
Sagnac distortion
GPS observation processing must also compensate for the Sagnac effect. The GPS time
scale is defined in an inertial system but observations are processed in an Earth-centered,
Earth-fixed (co-rotating) system, a system in which simultaneity is not uniquely defined.
A Lorentz transformation is thus applied to convert from the inertial system to the ECEF
system. The resulting signal run time correction has opposite algebraic signs for satellites
in the Eastern and Western celestial hemispheres. Ignoring this effect will produce an
east-west error on the order of hundreds of nanoseconds, or tens of meters in position.
The U.S. government believes that such jammers were used occasionally during the 2001
war in Afghanistan and the U.S. military claimed to destroy six GPS jammers during the
Iraq War, including one that was destroyed ironically with a GPS-guided bomb. Such a
jammer is relatively easy to detect and locate, making it an attractive target for anti-
radiation missiles. The UK Ministry of Defence tested a jamming system in the UK's
West Country on 7 and 8 June 2007.
Some countries allow the use of GPS repeaters to allow for the reception of GPS signals
indoors and in obscured locations, however, under EU and UK laws, the use of these is
prohibited as the signals can cause interference to other GPS receivers that may receive
data from both GPS satellites and the repeater.
Modernization
Having reached the program's requirements for Full Operational Capability (FOC) on
July 17, 1995, the GPS completed its original design goals. However, additional advances
in technology and new demands on the existing system led to the effort to modernize the
GPS. Announcements from the U.S. Vice President and the White House in 1998 initiated
these changes, and in 2000 the U.S. Congress authorized the effort, referring to it as GPS
III.
The project aims to improve the accuracy and availability for all users and involves new
ground stations, new satellites, and four additional navigation signals. New civilian
signals are called L2C, L5 and L1C; the new military code is called M-Code. Initial
Operational Capability (IOC) of the L2C code is expected in 2008. A goal of 2013 has
been established for the entire program, with incentives offered to the contractors if they
can complete it by 2011 (See GPS signals).
Applications
The Global Positioning System, while originally a military project, is considered a dual-
use technology, meaning it has significant applications for both the military and the
civilian industry.
Military
The military applications of GPS span many purposes:
Navigation: GPS allows soldiers to find objectives in the dark or in unfamiliar
territory, and to coordinate the movement of troops and supplies. The GPS-
receivers commanders and soldiers use are respectively called the Commanders
Digital Assistant and the Soldier Digital Assistant.
Target tracking: Various military weapons systems use GPS to track potential
ground and air targets before they are flagged as hostile.Hese weapon systems pass
GPS co-ordinates of targets to precision-guided munitions to allow them to engage
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Civilian
This antenna is mounted on the roof of a hut containing a scientific experiment needing
precise timing.
Many civilian applications benefit from GPS signals, using one or more of three basic
components of the GPS: absolute location, relative movement, and time transfer.
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The ability to determine the receiver's absolute location allows GPS receivers to perform
as a surveying tool or as an aid to navigation. The capacity to determine relative
movement enables a receiver to calculate local velocity and orientation, useful in vessels
or observations of the Earth. Being able to synchronize clocks to exacting standards
enables time transfer, which is critical in large communication and observation systems.
An example is CDMA digital cellular. Each base station has a GPS timing receiver to
synchronize its spreading codes with other base stations to facilitate inter-cell hand off
and support hybrid GPS/CDMA positioning of mobiles for emergency calls and other
applications. Finally, GPS enables researchers to explore the Earth environment including
the atmosphere, ionosphere and gravity field. GPS survey equipment has revolutionized
tectonics by directly measuring the motion of faults in earthquakes.
GPS tours are also an example of civilian use. The GPS is used to determine which
content to display. For instance, when approaching a monument it would tell you about
the monument.
GPS functionality has now started to move into mobile phones en masse. The first
handsets with integrated GPS were launched already in the late 1990’s, and were
available for broader consumer availability on networks such as those run by Nextel,
Sprint and Verizon in 2002 in response to US FCC mandates for handset positioning in
emergency calls. Capabilities for access by third party software developers to these
features were slower in coming, with Nextel opening those APIs up upon launch to any
developer, Sprint following in 2006, and Verizon soon thereafter.
Other systems
Other satellite navigation systems in use or various states of development include:
Beidou – China's regional system that China has proposed to expand into a global
system named COMPASS.
Galileo – a proposed global system being developed by the European Union,
joined by China, Israel, India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Ukraine,
planned to be operational by 2013.
GLONASS – Russia's global system which is being restored to full availability in
partnership with India.
Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) – India's proposed
regional system.
QZSS – Japanese proposed regional system, adding better coverage to the
Japanese Islands.
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A solution will have been found when is zero or sufficiently close to zero for
.
In order to linearize equation 2, the partial derivatives are computed as
where
.
Linearizing the right hand side of equation 2 about the approximate solution,
there results
where is the residual due to linearization which is in addition to the residual, , due
to an approximate solution.
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and
Substituting and transposing to the left hand side of the equation, there results
Equations 6 provide a set of four linear equations in four unknowns, the delta terms. They
are in a form for solution. Using the values of and
determined by this linear equation solution,
is evaluated using
and
Then set in equations 2 through 6, plug the terms
WiMAX:
WiMAX meaning Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a
telecommunications technology that provides for the wireless transmission of data using
a variety of transmission modes, from point-to-point links to portable internet access. The
technology provides up to 75 Mb/s symmetric broadband speed without the need for
cables. The technology is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard (also called Broadband
Wireless Access). The name "WiMAX" was created by the WiMAX Forum, which was
formed in June 2001 to promote conformity and interoperability of the standard. The
forum describes WiMAX as "a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last
mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL".
Definitions:
The terms "fixed WiMAX", "mobile WiMAX", "802.16d" and "802.16e" are frequently
used incorrectly. Correct definitions are the following:
Mobile communication
standards
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GSM (2G)
GPRS
EDGE (EGPRS)
Evolved EDGE
(EGPRS2B)
CSD
HSCSD
UMTS (3G)
W-CDMA (UMTS)
HSPA
HSDPA
HSUPA
HSPA+
UMTS-TDD
TD-CDMA
TD-SCDMA
FOMA
3GPP Rel. 8 (Pre-4G)
E-UTRA
cdmaOne (2G)
CDMA2000 (3G)
EV-DO
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AMPS Family
AMPS (1G)
TACS / ETACS
D-AMPS (2G)
Other Technologies
Pre Cellular
PTT
MTS
IMTS
AMTS
OLT
MTD
Autotel / PALM
ARP
1G
NMT
Hicap
CDPD
Mobitex
DataTAC
2G
iDEN
PDC
CSD
PHS
WiDEN
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Pre-4G
iBurst
HiperMAN
WiMAX
WiBro
GAN (UMA)
FDMA
OFDMA
TDMA
SSMA
CDMA
W-CDMA
Frequency bands
Cellular
GSM
UMTS
PCS
SMR
802.16-2004 is often called 802.16d, since that was the working party that
developed the standard. It is also frequently referred to as "fixed WiMAX" since it has
no support for mobility.
802.16e-2005 is an amendment to 802.16-2004 and is often referred to in
shortened form as 802.16e. It introduced support for mobility, amongst other things
and is therefore also known as "mobile WiMAX".
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Uses
The bandwidth and range of WiMAX make it suitable for the following potential
applications:
Connecting Wi-Fi hotspots to the Internet.
Providing a wireless alternative to cable and DSL for "last mile" broadband access.
Providing data and telecommunications services.
Providing a source of Internet connectivity as part of a business continuity plan.
That is, if a business has a fixed and a wireless Internet connection, especially from
unrelated providers, they are unlikely to be affected by the same service outage.
Providing portable connectivity.
Broadband access
Many companies are closely examining WiMAX for last mile connectivity. The resulting
competition may bring lower pricing for both home and business customers or bring
broadband access to places where it has been economically unavailable.
WiMAX access was used to assist with communications in Aceh, Indonesia, after the
tsunami in December 2004. All communication infrastructure in the area, other than
amateur radio, was destroyed, making the survivors unable to communicate with people
outside the disaster area and vice versa. WiMAX provided broadband access that helped
regenerate communication to and from Aceh.
In addition, WiMAX was used by Intel Corporation to assist the FCC and FEMA in their
communications efforts in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.
roughly the size of a laptop PC, and their installation is comparable to a residential
satellite dish.
With the potential of mobile WiMAX, there is an increasing focus on portable units. This
includes handsets (similar to cellular smartphones) and PC peripherals (PC Cards or USB
dongles). In addition, there is much emphasis from operators on consumer electronics
devices (game terminals, MP3 players and the like); it is notable this is more similar to
Wi-Fi than 3G cellular technologies.
Current certified devices can be found at the WiMAX Forum web site. This is not a
complete list of devices available as certified modules are embedded into laptops, MIDs
(Mobile Internet Devices), and private labeled devices.
Mobile handset applications
Sprint Nextel announced in mid-2006 that it would invest about US$ 5 billion in a
WiMAX technology buildout over the next few years.[4] Since that time Sprint has been
dealt setbacks in defections of (Nextel) iDEN and 3G subscribers that have resulted in
steep quarterly losses and led to a management shake up with Dan Hesse as its new CEO.
On May 7, 2008, Sprint, Clearwire, Google, Intel, Comcast, and Time Warner announced
a pooling of 2.5 GHz spectrum and formation of a new company which will take the
name Clearwire. The new company hopes to benefit from combined services offerings
and network resources as a springboard past its competitors. The cable companies will
provide media services to other partners while gaining access to the wireless network as a
Mobile virtual network operator. Google will contribute Android handset device
development and applications and will receive revenue share for advertising and other
services they provide. Clearwire Sprint and current Clearwire gain a majority stock
ownership in the new venture and ability to access between the new Clearwire and Sprint
3G networks. Some details remain unclear including how soon and in what form
announced multi-mode WiMAX and 3G EV-DO devices will be available. This raises
questions that arise for availability of competitive chips that require licensing of
Qualcomm's IPR.
Some analysts have questioned how the deal will work out: Although fixed-mobile
convergence has been a recognized factor in the industry, prior attempts to form
partnerships among wireless and cable companies have generally failed to lead to
significant benefits to the participants. Other analysts point out that as wireless progresses
to higher bandwidth, it inevitably competes more directly with cable and DSL, thrusting
competitors into bed together. Also, as wireless broadband networks grow denser and
145
usage habits shift, the need for increased back haul and media service will accelerate,
therefore the opportunity to leverage cable assets is expected to increase.
Backhaul/access network applications
WiMAX is a possible replacement candidate for cellular phone technologies such as
GSM and CDMA, or can be used as a layover to increase capacity. It has also been
considered as a wireless backhaul technology for 2G, 3G, and 4G networks in both
developed and poor nations.[5][6]
"Backhaul" for remote cellular operations is typically provided via satellite, and in urban
areas via one or several T1 connections. WiMAX is portable broadband and as such has
much more substantial backhaul need. Therefore traditional backhaul solutions are not
appropriate. Consequently the role of very high capacity wireless microwave point-to-
point backhaul (200 or more Mbit/s with typically 1 ms or less delay) is on the rise. Also,
fiber backhaul is more appropriate.
Deploying WiMAX in rural areas with limited or no internet backbone will be
challenging as additional methods and hardware will be required to procure sufficient
bandwidth from the nearest sources — the difficulty being in proportion to the distance
between the end-user and the nearest sufficient internet backbone.
Technical information
WiMAX is a term coined to describe standard, interoperable implementations of IEEE
802.16 wireless networks, similar to the way the term Wi-Fi is used for interoperable
implementations of the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN standard. However, WiMAX is very
different from Wi-Fi in the way it works.
[MAC layer/data link layer
In Wi-Fi the media access controller(MAC) uses contention access — all subscriber
stations that wish to pass data through a wireless access point(AP) are competing for the
AP's attention on a random interrupt basis. This can cause subscriber stations distant from
the AP to be repeatedly interrupted by closer stations, greatly reducing their throughput.
This makes services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or IPTV, which depend
on an essentially-constant Quality of service (QoS) depending on data rate and
interruptibility, difficult to maintain for more than a few simultaneous users.
In contrast, the 802.16 MAC uses a scheduling algorithm for which the subscriber station
needs to compete only once (for initial entry into the network). After that it is allocated an
access slot by the base station. The time slot can enlarge and contract, but remains
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assigned to the subscriber station, which means that other subscribers cannot use it. In
addition to being stable under overload and over-subscription (unlike 802.11), the 802.16
scheduling algorithm can also be more bandwidth efficient. The scheduling algorithm
also allows the base station to control QoS parameters by balancing the time-slot
assignments among the application needs of the subscriber stations.
Physical layer
The original version of the standard on which WiMAX is based (IEEE 802.16) specified
a physical layer operating in the 10 to 66 GHz range. 802.16a, updated in 2004 to 802.16-
2004, added specifications for the 2 to 11 GHz range. 802.16-2004 was updated by
802.16e-2005 in 2005 and uses scalable orthogonal frequency-division multiple access
(SOFDMA) as opposed to the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing version with
256 sub-carriers (of which 200 are used) in 802.16d. More advanced versions, including
802.16e, also bring Multiple Antenna Support through MIMO. See: WiMAX MIMO.
This brings potential benefits in terms of coverage, self installation, power consumption,
frequency re-use and bandwidth efficiency. 802.16e also adds a capability for full
mobility support. The WiMAX certification allows vendors with 802.16d products to sell
their equipment as WiMAX certified, thus ensuring a level of interoperability with other
certified products, as long as they fit the same profile.
Most commercial interest is in the 802.16d and .16e standards, since the lower
frequencies used in these variants suffer less from inherent signal attenuation and
therefore give improved range and in-building penetration. Already today, a number of
networks throughout the world are in commercial operation using certified WiMAX
equipment compliant with the 802.16d standard.
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Architecture
The WiMAX Forum has defined an architecture that defines how a WiMAX network
connects with other networks, and a variety of other aspects of operating such a network,
including address allocation, authentication, etc. An overview of the architecture is given
in the illustration.
This defines the following components, plus a number of interconnections (or reference
points) between these, labeled R1 to R5 and R8:
SS/MS: the Subscriber Station/Mobile Station
ASN: the Access Service Network[7]
BS: Base station, part of the ASN
ASN-GW: the ASN Gateway, part of the ASN
CSN: the Connectivity Service Network
HA: Home Agent, part of the CSN
AAA: AAA Server, part of the CSN
NAP: a Network Access Provider
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NSP: a Network Service Provider
It is important to note that the functional architecture can be designed into various
hardware configurations rather than fixed configurations. For example, the architecture is
flexible enough to allow remote/mobile stations of varying scale and functionality and
Base Stations of varying size - e.g. femto, pico, and mini BS as well as macros.
Comparison with Wi-Fi
Comparisons and confusion between WiMAX and Wi-Fi are frequent, possibly because
both begin with the same two letters, are based upon IEEE standards beginning with
"802.", and are related to wireless connectivity and Internet access. However, the two
standards are aimed at different applications.
WiMAX uses licensed spectrum to deliver a point-to-point connection to the
Internet from an ISP to an end user. Different 802.16 standards provide different types
of access, from portable (similar to a cordless phone) to fixed (an alternative to wired
access, where the end user's wireless termination point is fixed in location.)
Wi-Fi uses unlicensed spectrum to provide access to a network.
WiMAX and Wi-Fi have quite different Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms.
WiMAX uses a mechanism based on connections between the Base Station and the
user device. Each connection is based on specific scheduling algorithms. Wi-Fi has
introduced a QoS mechanism similar to fixed Ethernet, where packets can receive
different priorities based on their tags. For example VoIP traffic may be given priority
over web browsing.
Spectrum allocation issues
The 802.16 specification applies across a wide swath of the RF spectrum, and WiMAX
could function on any frequency below 66 GHz,[8] (higher frequencies would decrease the
range of a Base Station to a few hundred meters in an urban environment).
There is no uniform global licensed spectrum for WiMAX, although the WiMAX Forum
has published three licensed spectrum profiles: 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz, in an
effort to decrease cost: economies of scale dictate that the more WiMAX embedded
devices (such as mobile phones and WiMAX-embedded laptops) are produced, the lower
the unit cost. (The two highest cost components of producing a mobile phone are the
silicon and the extra radio needed for each band.) Similar economy of scale benefits
apply to the production of Base Stations.
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In the unlicensed band, 5.x GHz is the approved profile. Telecom companies are unlikely
to use this spectrum widely other than for backhaul, since they do not own and control
the spectrum.
In the USA, the biggest segment available is around 2.5 GHz, [9] and is already assigned,
primarily to Sprint Nextel and Clearwire. Elsewhere in the world, the most-likely bands
used will be the Forum approved ones, with 2.3 GHz probably being most important in
Asia. Some countries in Asia like India and Indonesia will use a mix of 2.5 GHz, 3.3 GHz
and other frequencies.Pakistan's Wateen Telecom uses 3.5 GHz.
Analog TV bands (700 MHz) may become available for WiMAX usage, but await the
complete rollout of digital TV, and there will be other uses suggested for that spectrum.
In the USA theFCC auction for this spectrum began in January 2008 and, as a result, the
biggest share of the spectrum went to Verizon Wireless and the next biggest to AT&T. [10]
EU commissionerViviane Reding has suggested re-allocation of 500–800 MHz spectrum
for wireless communication, including WiMAX.[11]
WiMAX profiles define channel size, TDD/FDD and other necessary attributes in order
to have inter-operating products. The current fixed profiles are defined for both TDD and
FDD profiles. At this point, all of the mobile profiles are TDD only. The fixed profiles
have channel sizes of 3.5 MHz, 5 MHz, 7 MHz and 10 MHz. The mobile profiles are 5
MHz, 8.75 MHz and 10 MHz. (Note: the 802.16 standard allows a far wider variety of
channels, but only the above subsets are supported as WiMAX profiles.)
Since October 2007, the Radiocommunication Sector of the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU-R) has decided to include WiMAX technology in the
IMT-2000 set of standards.[12]This enables spectrum owners (specifically in the 2.5-2.69
GHz band at this stage) to use Mobile WiMAX equipment in any country that recognizes
the IMT-2000.
Spectral efficiency
One of the significant advantages of advanced wireless systems such as WiMAX is
spectral efficiency. For example, 802.16-2004 (fixed) has a spectral efficiency of 3.7
(bit/s)/Hertz, and other 3.5–4G wireless systems offer spectral efficiencies that are similar
to within a few tenths of a percent. The notable advantage of WiMAX comes from
combining SOFDMA with smart antenna technologies. This multiplies the effective
spectral efficiency through multiple reuse and smart network deployment topologies. The
direct use of frequency domain organization simplifies designs using MIMO-AAS
compared to CDMA/WCDMA methods, resulting in more-effective systems.[citation needed]
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Limitations
A commonly-held misconception is that WiMAX will deliver 70 Mbit/s over 31 miles/50
kilometers. In reality, WiMAX can only do one or the other — operating over maximum
range (31 miles/50 km) increases bit error rate and thus must use a lower bitrate.
Lowering the range allows a device to operate at higher bitrates.
Typically, fixed WiMAX networks have a higher-gain directional antenna installed near
the client (customer) which results in greatly increased range and throughput. Mobile
WiMAX networks are usually made of indoor "customer premises equipment" (CPE)
such as desktop modems, laptops with integrated Mobile WiMAX or other Mobile
WiMAX devices. Mobile WiMAX devices typically have an omni-directional antenna
which is of lower-gain compared to directional antennas but are more portable. In
practice, this means that in a line-of-sight environment with a portable Mobile WiMAX
CPE, speeds of 10 Mbit/s at 6 miles/10 km could be delivered. However, in urban
environments they may not have line-of-sight and therefore users may only receive 10
Mbit/s over 2 km. In current deployments, throughputs are often closer to 2 Mbit/s
symmetric at 10 km with fixed WiMAX and a high gain antenna. It is also important to
consider that a throughput of 2 Mbit/s can mean 2 Mbit/s, symmetric simultaneously, 1
Mbit/s symmetric or some asymmetric mix (e.g. 0.5 Mbit/s downlink and 1.5 Mbit/s
uplink or 1.5 Mbit/s downlink and 0.5 Mbit/s uplink), each of which required slightly
different network equipment and configurations. Higher-gain directional antennas can be
used with a Mobile WiMAX network with range and throughput benefits but the obvious
loss of practical mobility.
Like most wireless systems, available bandwidth is shared between users in a given radio
sector, so performance could deteriorate in the case of many active users in a single
sector. In practice, many users will have a range of 2-, 4-, 6-, 8-, 10- or 12 Mbit/s services
and additional radio cards will be added to the base station to increase the capacity as
required.
Because of this, various granular and distributed network architectures are being
incorporated into WiMAX through independent development and within the IEEE
802.16j mobile multi-hop relay (MMR) task group. This includes wireless mesh, grids,
network remote station repeaters which can extend networks and connect to backhaul.
Silicon implementations
A critical requirement for the success of a new technology is the availability of low-cost
chipsets and silicon implementations.
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Intel Corporation is a leader in promoting WiMAX, and has developed its own chipset.
However, it is notable that most of the major semiconductor companies have to date been
more cautious of involvement and most of the products come from specialist smaller or
start-up suppliers. For the client-side these include Sequans, whose chips are in more than
half of the WiMAX Forum Certified(tm) MIMO-based Mobile WiMAX client devices,
GCT Semiconductor, ApaceWave, Altair Semiconductor, Beceem, Comsys, Runcom,
Motorola with TI,NextWave Wireless, Redpine Signals, Wavesat, Coresonic and
SySDSoft. Both Sequans and Wavesat manufacture products for both clients and network
while Texas Instruments, DesignArt, and picoChip are focused on WiMAX chip sets for
base stations. Kaben Wireless Silicon is a provider of RF front-end and semiconductor IP
for WiMAX applications. The large number of suppliers during introduction phase of
WiMAX demonstrates the low entry barriers for IPR.
Standards
The current WiMAX incarnation, Mobile WiMAX, is based upon IEEE Std 802.16e-
2005,[13] approved in December 2005. It is a supplement to the IEEE Std 802.16-2004, [14]
and so the actual standard is 802.16-2004 as amended by 802.16e-2005 — the
specifications need to be read together to understand them.
IEEE Std 802.16-2004 addresses only fixed systems. It replaced IEEE Standards 802.16-
2001, 802.16c-2002, and 802.16a-2003.
IEEE 802.16e-2005 improves upon IEEE 802.16-2004 by:
Adding support for mobility (soft and hard handover between base stations). This
is seen as one of the most important aspects of 802.16e-2005, and is the very basis of
'Mobile WiMAX'.
Scaling of the Fast Fourier transform (FFT) to the channel bandwidth in order to
keep the carrier spacing constant across different channel bandwidths (typically 1.25
MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz or 20 MHz). Constant carrier spacing results in a higher
spectrum efficiency in wide channels, and a cost reduction in narrow channels. Also
known as Scalable OFDMA (SOFDMA). Other bands not multiples of 1.25 MHz are
defined in the standard, but because the allowed FFT subcarrier numbers are only 128,
512, 1024 and 2048, other frequency bands will not have exactly the same carrier
spacing, which might not be optimal for implementations.
Improving non-line-of-sight propagation coverage by utilizing advanced antenna
diversity schemes, and hybrid automatic repeat-request (HARQ)
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TTCN-3 test specification language is used for the purposes of specifying conformance
tests for WiMAX implementations. WiMAX test suite is developed by a Specialist Task
Force atETSI (STF 252).[
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Associations
WiMAX Forum
The WiMAX Forum is a non profit organization formed to promote the adoption of
WiMax compatible products and services.
A major role for the organization is to certify the interoperability of WiMAX products. [17]
Those that pass conformance and interoperability testing achieve the "WiMAX Forum
Certified" designation and can display this mark on their products and marketing
materials. Some vendors claim that their equipment is "WiMAX-ready", "WiMAX-
compliant", or "pre-WiMAX", if they are not officially WiMAX Forum Certified.
Another role of the WiMax Forum is to promote the spread of knowledge about WiMax.
In order to do so, it has a certified training program that is currently offered in English
and French. It also offers a series of member events and endorses some industry events.
WiSOA was the first global organization composed exclusively of owners of WiMAX
spectrum with plans to deploy WiMAX technology in those bands. WiSOA focussed on
the regulation, commercialisation, and deployment of WiMAX spectrum in the 2.3–2.5
GHz and the 3.4–3.5 GHz ranges. WiSOA merged with theWireless Broadband Alliance
in April 2008.
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Competing technologies
In some areas of the world, the wide availability of UMTS and a general desire for
standardization has meant spectrum has not been allocated for WiMAX: in July 2005, the
EU-wide frequency allocation for WiMAX was blocked.
normalized by physical channel size (i.e., spectrum used to achieve the listed peak
rates); this obfuscates spectral efficiency and net through-put capabilities of the
different wireless technologies listed below.
v•d•e
Downlink Uplink
Standard Family Primary Use Radio Tech Notes
(Mbit/s) (Mbit/s)
LTE-Advanced update
OFDMA/MIMO/SC-
LTE UMTS/4GSM Mobile Internet 326.4 86.4 to offer over 1 Gbit/s
FDMA
speeds.
Mobile
5.310.615. Mobile range 18miles
Internetmobility 1.83.65.4
9 (30km)extended range
Flash-OFDM Flash-OFDM up to 200mph Flash-OFDM
34 miles (55km)
(350km/h)
HC-
iBurst iBurst 802.20 Mobile Internet 64 64 3–12 km
SDMA/TDD/MIMO
EDGE Evolution GSM Mobile Internet TDMA/FDD 1.9 0.9 3GPP Release 7
UMTS W-CDMA UMTS/3GSM Mobile Internet CDMA/FDD 0.38414.44 0.3845.7 HSDPA widely
HSDPA+HSUPA 2 611.5 deployed. Typical
HSPA+ CDMA/FDD/MIMO downlink rates today 2
Mbit/s, ~200 kbit/s
uplink; HSPA+
downlink up to 42
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Mbit/s.
Reported speeds
according to IPWireless
UMTS-TDD UMTS/3GSM Mobile Internet CDMA/TDD 16 16 using 16QAM
modulation similar
toHSDPA+HSUPA
EV-DO 1x Rev.
0EV-DO 1x 2.453.14.9 0.151.81. Rev B note: N is the
Rev.AEV-DO xN 8xN number of 1.25 MHz
CDMA2000 Mobile Internet CDMA/FDD
Rev.B chunks of spectrum
used. Not yet deployed.
Notes: All speeds are theoretical maximums and will vary by a number of factors,
including the use of external antennae, distance from the tower and the ground speed
(e.g. communications on a train may be poorer than when standing still). Usually the
bandwidth is shared between several terminals. The performance of each technology
is determined by a number of constraints, including the spectral efficiency of the
technology, the cell sizes used, and the amount of spectrum available. For more
information, see Comparison of wireless data standards.
LTE is expected to be ratified at the end of 2008, with commercial implementations
becoming viable within the next two years.
Future development
Mobile WiMAX based upon 802.16e-2005 has been accepted as IP-OFDMA for
inclusion as the sixth wireless link system under IMT-2000. This can hasten
acceptance by regulatory authorities and operators for use in cellular spectrum.
WiMAX II, 802.16m will be proposed for IMT-Advanced 4G.
The goal for the long term evolution of both WiMAX and LTE is to achieve 100
Mbit/s mobile and 1 Gbit/s fixed-nomadic bandwidth as set by ITU for 4G NGMN
(Next Generation Mobile Network) systems through the adaptive use of MIMO-AAS
and smart, granular network topologies. 3GPP LTE and WiMAX-m are concentrating
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A field test conducted by SUIRG (Satellite Users Interference Reduction Group) with
support from the U.S. Navy, the Global VSAT Forum, and several member
organizations yielded results showing interference at 12 km when using the same
channels for both the WiMAX systems and satellites in C-band. The WiMAX Forum
has not answered yet.
Current deployments
Networks
Main article: List of deployed WiMAX networks
The WiMAX Forum now claims there are over 350 WiMAX projects planned or
underway.
By territory
Europe
Commission Decision of 2008-05-21 on the harmonisation of the 3400-3800
MHz frequency band for terrestrial systems capable of providing electronic
communications services in the Community.[22]
It includes:
Pursuant to Article 4(2) of Decision 676/2002/EC (of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 7 March 2002 on a regulatory framework
for radio spectrum policy in the European Community - Radio Spectrum
Decision -),[23] the Commission gave a mandate dated 4 January 2006 to the
European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications
Administrations(hereinafter the “CEPT”) to identify the conditions relating to
the provision of harmonised radio frequency bands in the EU for Broadband
Wireless Access (BWA) applications.
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In response to that Mandate, the CEPT issued a report (CEPT Report 15) on
BWA, which concludes that the deployment of fixed, nomadic and mobile
networks is technically feasible within the 3400-3800 MHz frequency band
under the technical conditions described in the European Conference of
Postal and Telecommunications Administrations Decision ECC/DEC/(07)02
and Recommendation ECC/REC/(04)05.
No later than six months after entry into force of this Decision, Member
States shall designate and make available, on a non-exclusive basis, the 3400-
3600 MHz band for terrestrial electronic communications networks.
By 1 January 2012 Member States shall designate and subsequently make
available, on a non-exclusive basis, the 3600-3800 MHz band for terrestrial
electronic communications networks.
The designation of the 3400-3800 MHz band for fixed, nomadic and mobile
applications is an important element addressing the convergence of the
mobile, fixed and broadcasting sectors and reflecting technical innovation.
Member States shall allow the use of the 3400-3800 MHz band in for fixed,
nomadic and mobile electronic communications networks.
This Decision is addressed to the Member States.
Germany
German Federal Network Agency has begun assigning frequencies for wireless
Internet access in the band 3400 to 3600 MHz (in some places up to 4000 MHz).
[24]
United States
The XOHM system (a WiMax joint venture between Sprint and Clearwire) has
been installed in a large part of Baltimore, Maryland. It has achieved actual
3Mbs download rates and between 500kbs and 1Mbs upload rates, according to
Steven Wildstom in BusinessWeek.
VSAT :
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Fig: A 2.5 m parabolic dish antenna for bidirectional Satellite Internet Access.
A Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), is a two-way satellite ground station with a dish
antenna that is smaller than 3 meters. Most VSAT antennas range from 75 cm to 1.2 m.
Data rates typically range from narrowband up to 4 Mbit/s. VSATs access satellites
ingeosynchronous orbit to relay data from small remote earth stations (terminals) to other
terminals (in mesh configurations) or master earth station "hubs" (in star configurations).
VSATs are most commonly used to transmit narrowband data (point of sale transactions
such as credit card, polling or RFID data; or SCADA), orbroadband data (for the
provision of Satellite Internet access to remote locations, VoIP or video). VSATs are also
used for transportable, on-the-move (utilising phased array antennas) or mobile maritime
communications.
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Usage:
The first commercial VSATs were C band (6 GHz) receive-only systems by Equatorial
Communications using spread spectrum technology. More than 30,000 60 cm
antenna systems were sold in the early 1980s. Equatorial later developed a C band
(4/6 GHz) 2 way system using 1 m x 0.5 m antennas and sold about 10,000 units in
1984-85.
In 1985, Schlumberger Oilfield Research co-developed the world's first Ku band (12-14
GHz) VSATs with Hughes Aerospace to provide portable network connectivity for
oil field drilling and exploration units. Ku Band VSATs make up the vast majority of
sites in use today for data or telephony applications.
The largest VSAT network (more than 12,000 sites) was deployed by Spacenet and MCI
for the US Postal Service. Other large VSAT network users include Walgreens
Pharmacy,Dollar General, Wal-Mart, CVS, Riteaid, Yum! Brands (Taco Bell, Pizza
Hut, Long John Silver's and other Quick Service Restaurant chains),Intralot,
GTECH and SGI for lottery terminals. VSATs are used by car dealerships affiliated
with manufacturers such as Ford and General Motors for transmitting and receiving
sales figures and orders, as well as for receiving internal communications, service
bulletins, and interactive distance learning courses from manufacturers. The
FordStar network, used by Ford and its local dealers, is an example of this.
VSAT technology is also used for two-way satellite Internet providers such as
HughesNet, StarBand and WildBlue in the United States; and ASTRA2Connect
across Europe. These services are used across the world as a means of delivering
broadband Internet access to locations which cannot get less expensive broadband
connections such as ADSL or cable internet access; usually remote or rural
locations.
Nearly all VSAT systems are now based on IP, with a very broad spectrum of
applications. As of December 2004, the total number of VSATs ordered stood at
over 1 million, with nearly 650,000 in service. Annual VSAT service revenues were
$3.88 billion.
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Configurations
Most VSAT networks are configured in one of these topologies:
A star topology, using a central uplink site, such as a network operations center
(NOC), to transport data back and forth to each VSAT terminal via satellite,
A mesh topology, where each VSAT terminal relays data via satellite to another
terminal by acting as a hub, minimizing the need for a centralized uplink site,
A combination of both star and mesh topologies. Some VSAT networks are
configured by having several centralized uplink sites (and VSAT terminals stemming
from it) connected in a multi-star topology with each star (and each terminal in each star)
connected to each other in a mesh topology. Others configured in only a single star
topology sometimes will have each terminal connected to each other as well, resulting in
each terminal acting as a central hub. These configurations are utilized to minimize the
overall cost of the network, and to alleviate the amount of data that has to be relayed
through a central uplink site (or sites) of a star or multi-star network.
Advantages
Availability: VSAT services can be deployed anywhere having a clear view of
the Clarke Belt
Diversity: VSAT provides a wireless link completely independent of the local
terrestrial/wireline infrastructure - especially important for backup or disaster
recovery services
Deployability: VSAT services can be deployed in hours or even minutes (with
auto-acquisition antennas)
Homogeneity: VSAT enables customers to get the same speeds and service level
agreements at all locations across their entire network regardless of location
Acceleration: Most modern VSAT systems use onboard acceleration of
protocols such as TCP ("spoofing" of acknowledgement packets) and HTTP (pre-
fetching of recognized HTTP objects); this delivers high-quality Internet
performance regardless of latency (see below)
Multicast: Most current VSAT systems use a broadcast download scheme
(such as DVB-S) which enables them to deliver the same content to tens or
thousands of locations simultaneously at no additional cost
Security: Corporate-grade VSAT networks are private layer-2 networks over
the air.
Disadvantages
Latency: Since they relay signals off a satellite in geosynchronous orbit 22,300
miles above the Earth, VSAT links are subject to a minimum latency of
approximately 500 milliseconds round-trip. This makes them a poor choice for
"chatty" protocols or applications such as online gaming
Encryption: The acceleration schemes used by most VSAT systems rely upon
the ability to see a packet's source/destination and contents; packets encrypted via
VPN defeat this acceleration and perform slower than other network traffic
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Future applications:
Advances in technology have dramatically improved the price/performance
equation of FSS (Fixed Service Satellite) over the past five years. New VSAT systems are
coming online using Ka band technology that promise higher bandwidth rates for lower
costs.
FSS satellite systems currently in orbit have a huge capacity with a relatively low
price structure. FSS satellite systems provide various applications for subscribers,
including: phone conversations; fax; TV broadcast; high speed communication services;
Internet access; video conferencing; Satellite News Gathering (SNG); Digital Audio
Broadcasting (DAB) and others. These systems are applicable for providing various high-
quality services because they create efficient communication systems, both for residential
and business users.
satellites now carry about one third of the voice traffic between countries and
essentially all the television signals between countries.
The backbone of this system is the geosynchronous orbit satellite (GEO),
these are large communication satellites placed in orbit roughly 36,000
kilometers above the same spot on the earth at all times. Because of this high
orbit each satellite is able to see about one quarter of the earth, so only four or
so are needed for global coverage. Drawbacks to these satellites are that due to
the high altitude it takes a quarter of a second for signals to travel to and from
the satellite, delaying the responses during a conversation. Also the higher
altitude means a weaker signal so larger antennas are needed to maintain
overall coverage.
The next layers of satellites are middle earth orbit (MEO) and low earth orbit
(LEO). MEO satellites are generally placed in orbits above 10,000 kilometers,
while LEO satellites are generally below 1,500 kilometers. Of course now
with the lower altitude the signals are stronger so antenna size can be reduced,
but with this also comes less coverage so more satellites are required. In the
case of the LEO satellites at least 50 are usually required for full global
coverage.
The reasoning behind the orbit spacing comes from the presence of the Van
Allen Radiation Belt. Originally discovered by Explorer I, the Van Allen Belt
is composed of energetic ionized particles, which could damage solar cells
and perhaps other solid state components. The belt spans altitudes roughly
between 1,500 and 10,000 kilometers, thus the spacing.
VSAT, very small aperture terminal typically refers to a class of Earth stations
with a small diameter in the range of 0.95 meters to 2.4 meters. The terminals
have both transmit and receive capability. The majority of traditional VSAT
users such as gas stations, convenience stores and banks selected the
technology primarily to manage transaction-based applications - point-of-sales
credit authorization and inventory control.
Impact on Personal Life
We can see the impact of satellite and wireless communications in everyday life as we take a walk down
the street. People everywhere using cell phones, pagers, PDA’s. We are becoming a society that is
instantly accessible. Though even now the mobile phone penetration into the U.S. make stands at only
35% nationwide, compared to European penetration levels of 65%. Thus we are still only scratching the
surface for the potential growth in this field.
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have always had to patch together the best qualities of different technologies
to provide coverage to troubled areas. The nature of satellite technology “its
mobility, ubiquity, and flexibility” easily lends itself to humanitarian efforts.
The help satellite technology provides in disaster relief isn’t only limited to
the hardware. Companies like Verizon Wireless, has formed a team called the
significant event response team (SERT) to respond to emergency and relief
agencies in the communities they serve. The team provides wireless phones to
public safety agencies and local police and fire departments to help them
coordinate emergency operations. Other ways companies are helping is with
free airtime on satellite phones and allocation of satellite bandwidth capacity.
Impact on Industry
Most industry in America has begun integrating wireless, and satellite
technologies into their daily routines. This can be seen in everyday life as
FedEx employees use wireless handheld devices to help track packages, and
determine sender and receiver information to help organizations conduct
business more efficiently. To Hertz car rental employees pulling up driver and
car rental information in a parking lot, several hundred feet away from their
stationary computers.
One of the most notable impacts of satellite technology has been in the news
media. Although the video images had been jittery, and the audio sometimes
dropped off, CNN’s use of a videophone in Afghanistan after the events of
September 11th proved that content is the most important element in news.
Though initially used as a backup to CNN’s more traditional satellite trucks,
the videophone stepped to the forefront as getting live pictures out of
Afghanistan became more problematic.
The Talking Head videophone is about the size of a laptop computer, though
twice as deep, and costs roughly $20,000. It can be used with any telephone
line, ISDN connection, or satellite phone. For reporting out of Afghanistan,
CNN used the worldwide INMARSAT satellite service, which requires a
dedicated phone and dish, also about the size of a briefcase.
England’s 7E Communications Ltd., the manufacturer of the Talking Head
videophone, originally developed a unit that could only transmit at 64 Kbps.
This forced CNN to squeeze the picture down to a small insert. The rest of the
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field was then filled with additional information related to the story. 7E has
since developed a way to add a second satellite phone to the compression
package, which allows transmission at ISDN rates of 128 Kbps, effectively
doubling the quality and allowing for full-frame images to be broadcast.
CNN first began using the videophones in December 1999, when
correspondent Nic Robertson used an earlier model to broadcast exclusive
pictures and sound of a hijacking in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The videophone
was also prominent when CNN broadcast the first live pictures of the 24-crew
members released from the U.S. Navy spy plane in China when they landed
on the Pacific Island of Guam. CNN’s chief news executive Eason Jordan
states the units are easy to use and due to its portability, allows the reporter in
the field to broadcast live TV in a matter of seconds.
Other fields of industry, not so prominent, have also benefited from
advancements in satellite technology. With more than 80 land and offshore
drilling rigs around the world, Helmerich & Payne (H&P), an energy-oriented
company engaging in contract drilling, oil and gas exploration, and production
worldwide, needed a way to link all of its facilities across a single, central
network. The company leveraged solutions from several companies to build
and deploy a high speed, satellite and terrestrial-based network that delivers
real-time voice and data capabilities to all H&P locations. Prior to establishing
the satellite network, H&P had utilized a dial-up network, coupled with
cellular phones for voice communications. The cellular service along was
costing the company more than $3,000 a month per rig.
Motorola Multiservice Networks Division (MND), integration consulting
group FDDI-AVD, and InterSat Communications worked with H&P to design
and implement a customized solution to expand its existing network, and
deliver a high-speed satellite system to connect the company’s rigs and
offices. A network-in-a-box was developed by combining routers, satellite and
servers into a single self-contained unit.
The solution was designed around Motorola Vanguard multiservice network
units, which enable the convergence of data, voice, and video, while laying
the foundation for wireless/wireline integration. The Vanguard units provide
H&P with on-demand bandwidth to support a broad range of high-speed
transmissions, featuring 24×7 reliability. A microwave and/or satellite network
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deployed on each rig and remote location connects the company’s offshore
drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico with the Tulsa, Oklahoma home
office. The network units also offer built-in data encryption and compression
features, enabling the secure transmission of sensitive data around the world.
By achieving fully integrated field connectivity, H&P has improved the
company’s business operations, offering a host of added benefits, including
seamless information exchange, synchronized reporting and reduced telecom
costs. Customers on-site can also share the available bandwidth to securely
connect with their own internal information systems. Real-time drilling data
can also be delivered to the customers’ regional or headquarter offices,
providing them with updated information on each day’s activities.
Some banks are finding that using satellites for data transmission can improve
network performance and cut costs as well as provide benefits in staff training
and customer satisfaction. Most banks have relied on 56 Kbps landline frame
relay services to carry data traffic to and from their branches. But a
pronounced increase in traffic, fueled by the explosive growth in Internet-
based applications, is increasing clogging these circuits and causing
bottlenecks.
When reviewing the systems employed by banks in Canada, it was determined
that most banks transmit large volumes of data from head office to their
branches while branches typically return considerably less data to head office.
Telesat, the owner and operator of Canada’s fleet of communication satellites,
capitalized on this fact to employ a service that uses a high-speed satellite link
to transmit data to the branches, and the existing 56 Kbps network then
transmits data back to the head office. This service can deliver data speeds of
up to 24 megabytes per second “more than 400 times faster than a 56 Kbps
system”.
The introduction of satellite technology has also given the banks the
bandwidth to offer a comprehensive suite of services to their remote branches
that typically lack high-speed landline services. For Canada Trust bank, the
service has been utilized to train employees at branches across Canada.
Sessions are held at a Toronto studio and broadcast live to 200-300 employees
at a time.
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School systems have also had to beef up their networks to the point where
they rival or exceed the capacity of many corporate networks, due to the
explosive growth in student Internet usage. School systems around the country
have deployed unlicensed wireless networks, tapped the bandwidth of cable
television systems and even employed satellite service as a cheaper and more
reliable alternative to local telephone companies.
The utilization of satellites has also offered the possibility of connectivity to
schools in remote areas where they do not always have access to multiple
wire-line providers. The University of Alaska, in combination with Starband
Communications Inc. has deployed a VSAT satellite service to link 25
communities throughout the state. This deployment was initially designed to
test speed and latency, as well as the toll the harsh Alaskan climate takes on
performance.
Future Developments
The telecommunications industry is going to see more technological change in
the next five years than it has seen in the past 95 years. Five vital technologies
that will contribute to these monumental changes are:- Optical transmission-
Satellite communication- Wireless and mobile communication devices-
Broadband digital technologies- Internet resources
orbit concentrates the available satellite capacity at lower latitudes, where the
largest populations exist; little or no coverage is provided beyond 70 degrees
latitude in either hemisphere.
Deregulation of the telecommunications industry in various developed
countries is speeding the delivery of new services and prompting the
investment of enormous amounts of capital in new facilities. A key factor in
this is the explosion of the Internet.
To serve this new market, many new satellite systems are planned, but due to
the congestion of the frequencies currently being used for fixed satellite
systems, these systems will operate in a higher range of frequencies, known as
Ku-band. Though much work is still to be done in this area, as one major
drawback to Ku-band, whose wavelength encompasses between one and 1.5
centimeters, is the signal is significantly attenuated by rain. For this reason,
the use of Ku-band was confined until recently to use in just a small number
of experimental satellites.
Now U.S. communications regulators are considering an orbital scheme for
broadband Internet users via Ku-band satellites that avoids interference with
geostationary communications satellites in the same frequency bands by
moving the spacecraft into elliptical orbits, phased to give them the longest
hang time over the biggest markets. This approach should effectively double
the capacity of near-Earth space to handle broadband satellite
communications.
One company behind this approach is Virtual Geosatellite, under their plan 15
satellites would occupy separate elliptical orbits measuring about 320 miles
high at perigee and almost 17,000 miles high at agopee. With each orbit taking
about 8 hours. Virtual GEO calculates it could get about 5 hours of operating
time per orbit as the satellites approach and leave apogee. The Virtual GEO
constellation would also be offset from GEO satellites by at least 40 degrees,
relative to the equator. At that angle of separation, the satellites would not
interfere with GEO spacecraft in the same frequency.
Advancement, but at what Cost
While many companies are looking to the future to see what advancements
they can develop to their niche in the communications market. The hard
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reality is that there is only so much money available to fund the research and
develop the needed hardware. This combined with the fact that, in most cases,
several companies or alliances are competing for the same piece of the market
will cause some to be left behind, no matter whose technology scheme might
be better.
One case in point is the Iridium project, the joint venture between Motorola,
Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, who declared bankruptcy in 1999. The
project, with a projected cost of $3.4 billion, failed to catch on with
consumers. Major reasons being people unwilling to spend approximately
$3,000 per unit and up to $7 per minute of airtime. These costs were
astronomical to the consumer in an era when ordinary cellular telephone
networks rapidly expanding. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, Iridium and
its affiliates collectively owed creditors more than $1 billion.
If itбжs a risky venture, then why are so many companies spending
tremendous amounts of money to try to stay ahead of the field. One simple
reason, the potential profit is enormous. Annual revenues from telephone
services, high-speed Internet access, and imaging generated by satellites are
expected to reach $150 billion by 2008, according to the International Space
Business Council.
Conclusion
As we have seen, satellites have a major impact on our lives, in both personal
areas and in industry. The technology has proven its versatility versus other
communication formats with its ability to provide service to areas on the globe
that are virtual inaccessible to most others technologies. This function has
proven to be instrumental in assisting communities in times of strife and has
also helped companies establish better information links with their facilities in
more remote areas.
As the communications market continues to grow at an astronomical rate, the
main focus of the industry will be on how improvements can be made in cost,
speed, quality, and convenience for consumers. While satellites have been a
leading force in providing solutions in these areas, such as the reduction in
size of receiver antennas to three feet or less making installation and usage
much easier on the customer. The element that will be key to the future is the
ability to give access to remote areas around the globe.
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While in the United States has many systems, especially fiber optic networks,
global telecommunication, in many areas, lacks the internal infrastructure to
support even the most basic of telephony services. Satellites are an excellent
method to establish access to areas with poor terrestrial infrastructures where
capacity is either not available or is cost prohibitive.The Internet is another
area where satellites can be utilized to provide increased and enhanced
service. While now the majority of Internet content resides in the United
States, in the very near future increased amounts of content will originate
from Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America. Also, the inherent broadcast
architecture of satellites makes connectivity highly attractive to Internet
service providers (ISP) who are experiencing bottlenecks and network
management difficulties due to the exponential demand for bandwidth. As
content providers look to push more audio, video, and animation over the
Web, satellites may enjoy a unique advantage in the area of web casting.
While satellites enjoy increased accessibility to areas around the world, fiber
optics enjoys a much greater capacity and speed potential. Where available
future systems should look to mesh these two technologies together. Though
meshing these two technologies together would require the development of
gateways capable of optimizing the inherent benefits of each, while
addressing the differences between the two. The major issue to be addressed
will be accommodating the delay or latency due to the slower speeds by
satellite, this will cause packets arriving at the fiber network to be dropped.
References:
1. Wikipidia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_satellite)
2. Satellite Communications by Dennis Roddy
3. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov
4. http://www.wtec.org/loyola/satcom/toc.htm
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5. http://science.howstuffworks.com/satellite.htm