The DLR Institute of Communications and Navigation developed and demonstrated an on-board switch for a DVB-S2/DVB-RCS2 satellite communications testbed. The on-board switch supports switching between carriers and beams, multicast and network coding. It has been implemented in an ARM processor of an FPGA evaluation board.
The developed on-board switch provides high connectivity between satellite beams. It saves bandwidth and transmit power, when satellite terminals are directly communicating to each other. On-board switching is useful for emergency/security applications and institutional purposes.
The purpose of the activity was to study, develop and validate the OPB functionalities for the next generation of satellite OBP hosted payloads for high speed security applications and institutional purposes.
The scope of the activity also includes a comparison between the OBP solution and the conventional transparent system in terms of cost, technical and operational point-of-view to allow for benchmarking.
On-board switching was combined with new network coding concepts to save power and bandwidth in the satellite downlink.
The activity was accomplished by building a demonstrator implementing a complete end-to- end system.
The on-board switching solution is compatible with DVB-S2 and DVB-RCS2 standards.
The project is funded by ESA and coordinated by Space Engineering S.p.A..
Partners:
Duration:
2014-2017
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