DLR - Institute of Communications and Navigation

Large Scale Facilities

The Institute maintains three large scale facilities, which are used for obtaining experimental insights, testing new methods and algorithms, as well as for demonstrating system concepts.

These are in particular:

Antenna Test Range (AMA)
Multi-output Advanced Signal Test Environment for Receivers (MASTER)
Experimentation and Verification Network (EVnet)

A fourth facility – the Transportable Optical Ground Station (TOGS) – is still under construction.

Antenna test range
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MASTER

The Multi-output Advanced Signal Test Environment for Receivers (MASTER) is a unique and powerful hardware simulation tool for the test and quality assessment of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers. It is a full constellation simulator, offering control over the satellite orbit definitions, a user-specified location or track, date and time as well as orbit and clock errors, ionosphere, troposphere, multipath and interference. The scenarios can be repeated several times with exactly the same parameters.

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EVNet

The Experimentation and Verification Network (EVnet) is a near real-time facility capable of acquisition, processing and distribution of GNSS as well as GNSS-related data. It consists of a set of currently 14 sensor stations (June 2011) distributed worldwide, a Central Processing and Control Facility (CPCF) installed and operated at the DLR campus Neustrelitz and different External Processing Facilities, as well as application-specific user components.

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Transportable Optical Ground Station (TOGS)

The transportable optical ground station (TOGS) is a versatile modular instrument that can be used for a variety of experimental optical downlink and uplink scenarios as well as for assessing the atmospheric optical channel. The TOGS was designed and built by the Institute in the years 2010 and 2011. One major design goal was a small and lightweight construction, which can be easily transported to sites all over the world. The structure had to be stiff enough to reach the accuracy needed for optical communications.

Transportable Optische Bodenstation (TOGS)

Communications Systems

Satellite Networks

Navigation

Satellite Communications

Optical Free-Space Communication

Aeronautical Communication

Multisensor Navigation

Satellite Navigation

Antenna test range

MASTER

EVNet

Transportable Optical Ground Station (TOGS)