Satellite Communications in the New Space Era: A Survey and Future Challenges

Kodheli, Oltjon; Lagunas, Eva; Maturo, Nicola; Sharma, Shree Krishna; Shankar, Bhavani; Montoya, Jesus Fabian Mendoza; Duncán, Juan Carlos Merlano; Spano, Danilo; Chatzinotas, Symeon; Kisseleff, Steven; Querol, Jorge; Lei, Liujie; Vu, Thang X.; Goussetis, George

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2002.08811

Cited by 13 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 225 publications

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“…Furthermore, we would like to investigate various thermal control methods (including both active and passive systems), suitable for the APIS mission. In addition to a detailed system model, some of the key future challenges involve distributed algorithms for swarm behaviour, including energy-efficient communication [84], smart autonomous navigation [85], distributed processing [86], attitude control [87], and in-depth mission planning [88,89]. Furthermore, significant advances in propulsion technology [90], and miniaturization of satellite subsystems and payloads in the upcoming decades will yield smaller satellites and larger swarms, subsequently benefiting the APIS mission [65].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applications And Potentials Of Intelligent Swarms For Magnetospheric Studies

Rajan,

Ben-Maor,

Kaderali

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Earth's magnetosphere is vital for today's technologically dependent society. To date, numerous design studies have been conducted and over a dozen science missions have flown to study the magnetosphere. However, a majority of these solutions relied on large monolithic satellites, which limited the spatial resolution of these investigations, as did the technological limitations of the past. To counter these limitations, we propose the use of a satellite swarm carrying numerous and distributed payloads for magnetospheric measurements. Our mission is named APIS -Applications and Potentials of Intelligent Swarms.The APIS mission aims to characterize fundamental plasma processes in the Earth's magnetosphere and measure the effect of the solar wind on our magnetosphere. We propose a swarm of 40 CubeSats in two highly-elliptical orbits around the Earth, which perform radio tomography in the magnetotail at 8-12 Earth Radii (R E ) downstream, and the subsolar magnetosphere at 8-12 R E upstream. These maps will be made at both low-resolutions (at 0.5 R E , 5 seconds cadence) and high-resolutions (at 0.025 R E , 2 seconds cadence). In addition, in-situ measurements of the magnetic and electric fields, plasma density will be performed by on-board instruments.In this article, we present an outline of previous missions and designs for magnetospheric studies, along with the science drivers and motivation for the APIS mission. Furthermore, preliminary design results are included to show the feasibility of such a mission. The science requirements drive the APIS mission design, the mission operation and the system requirements. In addition to the various science payloads, critical subsystems of the satellites are investigated e.g., navigation, communication, processing and power systems. Our preliminary investigation on the mass, power and link budgets indicate that the mission could be realized using Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) technologies and with homogeneous CubeSats, each with a 12U form factor. We summarize our findings, along with the potential next steps to strengthen our design study.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applications And Potentials Of Intelligent Swarms For Magnetospheric Studies

Rajan,

Ben-Maor,

Kaderali

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…For instance, EDRS employs FSO communications between LEO satellites collecting Earth observation data and GEO satellite relaying data to Earth. However, with the start of a New Space Era, satellites are getting miniaturized, and deploying many small satellites, e.g., CubeSats, is preferred [10]. The power and size requirements of FSO systems far exceed the limitations of cube/micro/nanosatellites.…”

Section: A Earth Observationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terahertz Wireless Communications in Space

Civas¹,

Akan²

2021

Preprint

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The New Space Era has increased communication traffic in space by new space missions led by public space agencies and private companies. Mars colonization is also targeted by crewed missions in the near future. Due to increasing space traffic near Earth and Mars, the bandwidth is getting congested. Moreover, the downlink performance of the current missions is not satisfactory in terms of delay and data rate. Therefore, to meet the increasing demand in space links, Terahertz band (0.1-10 THz) wireless communications are proposed in this study. In line with this, we discuss the major challenges that the realization of THz band space links pose and possible solutions. Moreover, we simulate Mars-space THz links for the case of a clear Mars atmosphere, and a heavy dust storm to show that even in the worst conditions, a large bandwidth is available for Mars communication traffic.

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“…Accommodating ubiquitous connectivity and high data rate communication services is one of the main goals for communication networks. To complement this goal, satellite communication has gained a renewed upsurge in the New Space era [1] due to its ability to provide global wireless coverage and continuous service guarantee especially in scenarios not optimally supported by terrestrial infrastructures. In particular, a new work item has recently been initialized by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to study a set of necessary adaptations enabling the operation of 5G New Radio (NR) protocol in non-terrestrial network (NTN) with a first priority on satellite access [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, in ultra-dense LEO satellite networks, the ICAN paradigm exhibits some distinct advantages, such as navigation improvement with stronger signal strength and better network geometry, and user equipment (UE) self-localization enhanced network access and mobility management. To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first in-depth study on applying ICAN 1 Navigation can be considered as a set of continuous and dynamic positioning/localization procedures. In this paper, we use navigation and positioning/localization interchangeably when no ambiguity occurs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated Communication and Navigation for Ultra-Dense LEO Satellite Networks: Vision, Challenges and Solutions

Wang¹,

Luo²,

Chen³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Next generation beyond 5G networks are expected to provide both Terabits per second data rate communication services and centimeter-level accuracy localization services in an efficient, seamless and cost-effective manner. However, most of the current communication and localization systems are separately designed, leading to an under-utilization of radio resources and network performance degradation. In this paper, we propose an integrated communication and navigation (ICAN) framework to fully unleash the potential of ultra-dense LEO satellite networks for optimal provisioning of differentiated services. The specific benefits, feasibility analysis and challenges for ICAN enabled satellite system are explicitly discussed. In particular, a novel beam hopping based ICAN satellite system solution is devised to adaptively tune the network beam layout for dual functional communication and positioning purposes. Furthermore, a thorough experimental platform is built following the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) defined non-terrestrial network simulation parameters to validate the performance gain of the ICAN satellite system.

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Satellite Communications in the New Space Era: A Survey and Future Challenges

Cited by 13 publications

References 225 publications

Applications And Potentials Of Intelligent Swarms For Magnetospheric Studies

Applications And Potentials Of Intelligent Swarms For Magnetospheric Studies

Terahertz Wireless Communications in Space

Integrated Communication and Navigation for Ultra-Dense LEO Satellite Networks: Vision, Challenges and Solutions

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