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Analysis of the communication links between the AlSat‐1b satellite and the ground station: The impact of the Auto Tracking system on antenna pointing accuracy
Author(s) -
Bekkar Djelloul Saiah Saiah,
Bensikaddour Elhabib,
Kaddouri Ali,
Belbachir Redouane,
Nasri Boualem,
Baba Hamed Djamel Eddine
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of satellite communications and networking
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.388
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1542-0981
pISSN - 1542-0973
DOI - 10.1002/sat.1396
Subject(s) - computer science , antenna (radio) , satellite , remote sensing , ground station , telecommunications , communications satellite , reflector (photography) , low earth orbit , telemetry , geology , physics , optics , light source , astronomy
Summary The communication links between a satellite and the Earth station (ES) are exposed to many impairments such as noise, rain, and atmospheric attenuations. They are also prone to loss such as those resulting from antenna pointing and polarization. The Algerian Earth Observation satellite AlSat‐1b is designed to accomplish its mission in S‐band (Telecommands and Telemetry) and X‐band (images) frequencies in low Earth orbit (LEO). The ground segment (GS) of this satellite, situated in Oran, Algeria, is based on the X/Y antenna mounting system with 7.3‐m dish diameter. This large reflector can cause antenna pointing errors. The Antenna Control Unit (ACU) implemented in this station can be configured with or without an AutoTrack system. In this work, operational tests and analysis of the different communication links between AlSat‐1b and the ground station are presented. The obtained results clearly show that the quality of the S‐band links can reliably and efficiently satisfy the requirements without the use of the AutoTrack. On the contrary, the use of AutoTrack is necessary in order to obtain an improved level of link quality in the X band.