Optical feeder links for high throughput satellites

Roy, Bernard; Poulenard, Sylvain; Dimitrov, Svilen; Barrios, Ricardo; Giggenbach, Dirk; Kernec, Arnaud Le; Sotom, M.

doi:10.1109/icsos.2015.7425074

Cited by 32 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The real differentiator may actually be the availability of optical ground terminals, which is expected to start from small dimension telescopes, so more favourable to a large N+P networks. Variants like clusters of small optical terminals discussed in [3] may be equally attractive.…”

Section: Cost Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While there is clear interest to use optical communications in VHTS feeder links ( [1], [2], [3]), thanks to their very large capacity, several challenges need to be resolved before they can be adopted by satellite operators. A companion paper in the same conference [4] investigates different options for the feeder link technologies and presents several solutions for the satellite payload.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Optical feeder link architectures for very HTS: ground segment

Girault¹,

Arapoglou²

2019

International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2018

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The paper deals with an analysis of Very High Throughput Satellite (VHTS) systems employing optical feeder links. As the capacities of newly announced next generation VHTS systems are exceeding the Terabit/s barrier, a large amount of investment needs to be directed not only to the space segment (as was the case traditionally), but also to the ground segment in support of the feeder links. To reduce this investment, satellite operators are reviewing various options and technologies for the feeder links, among which optical feeder links [1]. In this paper, different approaches are analysed for ground segment networks relying on Optical Ground Stations (OGS), exploring the concept of smart gateway diversity with N active OGS and P redundant ones, like is currently done in VHTS systems with RF feeder links. OGS locations are assessed in terms of aggregate availability and total cost for the satellite operator, which is an essential element for the viability of the VHTS system. Different options are assessed for the distribution of OGS gateway processing functions (local at OGS or centralised), and for their interconnection. The main technical challenges are discussed, identifying which technologies will be required for an operational VHTS system with OGS.

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Section: Cost Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical feeder link architectures for very HTS: ground segment

Girault¹,

Arapoglou²

2019

International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2018

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“…Free space optical communications are seen as a key technology [11,13,16] to cope with the needs of high data rate payloads for future low-earth orbiting observation satellites in replacement or in addition to current radio-frequency technologies. While the latter are very mature and well proven technologies which have been used for decades, the former may be able to offer data rates beyond the reach of radio-frequency technologies.…”

Section: Introduction and State Of The Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The resulting networks were then analyzed using orbital information from various existing low-earth orbiting satellites (identical to [7]). It was shown that mid-latitude stations could handle between 5 and 9 Tb of data per day, while high-latitude stations could not handle more than 16 Tb of data per day. While these results were less optimistic than the ones proposed in a previous paper [7], comparisons showed that even small networks of optical ground stations using low data rates (10.5 Gbps) could outperform radio-frequency throughputs.…”

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confidence: 99%

Optimizing ground station networks for free space optical communications: Maximizing the data transfer

et al. 2018

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Free space optical communications are becoming a mature technology to cope with the needs of high data rate payloads for future low-earth orbiting observation satellites. However, they are strongly impacted by clouds. In this paper, we aim to find a network of optical ground stations maximizing the percentage of data acquired by a low-earth orbiting satellite that can be transferred to the Earth, taking into consideration cloud information. This problem can be separated in two parts and solved hierarchically: the selection of a network of optical ground stations and the assignment of downloads to visibility windows of the stations. We present theoretical and practical results regarding the complexity of the latter subproblem and propose a dynamic programming algorithm to solve it. We combine this algorithm with two methods for the enumeration of the stations, and compare them with a mixed integer linear program (MILP). Results show that even if the MILP can solve scenarios over small horizons, the hierarchical approaches outperform it in term of computation time while still achieving optimality for larger instances. KEYWORDS cloud uncertainties, combinatorial optimization, dynamic programming, free space optical communications, mixed-integer linear programming, network design INTRODUCTION AND STATE OF THE ARTFree space optical communications are seen as a key technology [11,13,16] to cope with the needs of high data rate payloads for future low-earth orbiting observation satellites in replacement or in addition to current radio-frequency technologies. While the latter are very mature and well proven technologies which have been used for decades, the former may be able to offer data rates beyond the reach of radio-frequency technologies.Current radio-frequency technologies mainly use X-band for download and thus can currently provide up to a few gigabits per second (Gbps) [3]. Their main advantage is that X-bands are not impacted by weather or atmospheric turbulences, thus allowing the establishment of communications at very low elevation angles (typically 5 • above the horizon). This leads to an increase in the contact duration between low-earth orbiting satellites and ground stations. One of their main drawbacks is their limited data rates and the need of frequency licensing in order to avoid interferences. This will be a major issue in the upcoming years due to the increase in the number of operational satellites and constellations orbiting around the Earth.Free space optical communications offer data rates orders of magnitude higher than current radio-frequency ones: targeted data rates go from some tens of gigabits per second to several terabits per second (Tbps). Moreover, thanks to their very narrow beam, they do not require frequency licensing and are hard to intercept by malicious observers. Finally, they Networks. 2019;73:234-253.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/net

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“…Free-Space-Optical (FSO) communications are seen as a key technology [6] [8] [11] to cope with the needs of higher data-rate payloads for future lowearth orbiting (LEO) observation satellites in replacement to the current radiofrequency (RF) technologies. Current RF technologies use X-Band for download which can currently provide up to a few Gbps [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ground stations networks for Free-Space Optical communications: maximizing the data transfer

Capelle

Huguet

Jozefowiez

et al. 2018

Electronic Notes in Discrete Mathematics

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Free-space optical communications are becoming a mature technology, but unlike current radio-frequency technologies, they are strongly impacted by clouds. In this paper, we aim to find a network of optical ground stations maximizing the amount of data that can be sent from a low-earth orbiting satellite to the Earth during its missions, taking into consideration cloud information. We present a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP) and a hierarchical method based on an exhaustive enumeration of the sets of ground stations and on a dynamic programming algorithm and compare them on real scenarios based on archived years of cloud data. Even if the MILP can solve scenarios over small time horizons in less than one hour, experiments show that the hierarchical approach outperforms it in term of CPU time while achieving optimality.

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Optical feeder links for high throughput satellites

Cited by 32 publications

References 7 publications

Optical feeder link architectures for very HTS: ground segment

Optical feeder link architectures for very HTS: ground segment

Optimizing ground station networks for free space optical communications: Maximizing the data transfer

Ground stations networks for Free-Space Optical communications: maximizing the data transfer

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