Distributed-demodulation satellite communication system
AssigneeThales
InventorJean-François Boutillon
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A telecommunications satellite payload includes a signal receiver (ANT) for receiving signals transmitted on an uplink, an analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) for converting the received signals into digital samples, a modem (MOD), an inter-satellite communication device (ISL) and a traffic management unit (GT) configured, on the basis of resource planning information (PL), so as to transmit the digital samples either to the modem (MOD) in order to be demodulated or to the inter-satellite communication device (ISL) in order to be transmitted to a recipient satellite responsible for demodulating the digital samples.
Claims8
A telecommunications satellite payload comprising a signal receiver (ANT) for receiving signals transmitted on an uplink, an analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) for converting the received signals into digital samples, a modem (MOD), an inter-satellite communication device (ISL) and a traffic management unit (GT) configured, on the basis of resource planning information (PL), so as to transmit the digital samples either to the modem (MOD) in order to be demodulated or to the inter-satellite communication device (ISL) in order to be transmitted to a recipient satellite responsible for demodulating the digital samples,
- each signal received by the signal receiver (ANT) being associated with a beam or with a carrier, and the resource planning information (PL) containing an association between the beam or the carrier, on the one hand, and the satellite responsible for demodulating the received signal, on the other hand,
- the traffic management unit (GT) being configured so as to encapsulate the digital samples in a frame containing at least one identifier indicating that the digital samples are not demodulated and a destination address of the satellite responsible for demodulating the digital samples.
A method for planning resources in a telecommunications system comprising a plurality of satellites, each satellite comprising a processor, the method comprising the steps of, for each given time interval:
- for each beam or carrier associated with a coverage area, assigning the demodulation of the beam or of the carrier to the satellite receiving the beam or the carrier if the maximum demodulation capacity of the processor of the satellite has not been reached, and otherwise assigning the demodulation of the beam or of the carrier to another satellite of the system whose maximum demodulation capacity has not been reached,
- transmitting, to each satellite of the system, resource planning information containing an association between the beam or the carrier to be demodulated for the coverage area of the satellite, on the one hand, and the satellite responsible for demodulating the received signal, on the other hand, in order to demodulate a beam or a carrier, encapsulating the digital samples to be demodulated in a frame containing at least one identifier indicating that the digital samples are not demodulated and a destination address of the satellite responsible for demodulating the digital samples.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.