Design and analysis of multibeam communication satellite links operated at Ka Band Frequency in Indonesia

Abstract

In this paper, we design the link budget of communication satellite. This communication satellite is designed for Ka-Band Frequency for broadband communication in Non-Geostationary Orbit (NGSO) with altitude of 1200 km. The ability of this communication satellite depends on the strength of the signal and the amount of thermal noise. Ka-Band has wider bandwidth and higher data capacity but the drawback of this frequency is it is susceptible to rain attenuation in which Indonesia is an equatorial area that has high rainfall rate, so that the design of communication satellite in Ka-Band needs more consideration to determine satellite system parameter to keep the signal strength great. Indonesia is a wide archipelago country and satellite link design requires beam that can cover all Indonesia with great signal strength and multibeam antenna technology is one of solutions to overcome it. In this research, design and analysis of communication satellite is done using multibeam antenna. The main challenge of the design is to generate the link budget’s result to meet determined parameter. Iterative calculation in design must be used to find an effective link margin and bit rate of this communication satellite. The main result of this research is multi beam satellite provide better performance than single beam satellite in Ka band frequency. The use of BPSK modulation in multi beam satellite shows better performance than other modulation types.