CubeSat Communication Sub-system Design for Coastal Marine Monitoring Applications

Richelle Adams, Deborah Villarroel-Lamb and Fasil Muddeen

Richelle AdamsFasil MuddeenDeborah Villarroel-Lamb

https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:207925432

The West Indian Journal of Engineering

2019

1

42

CubeSatNano-satellitesAcoustic Doppler Current ProfilerADCPCommunication Design

39–50

In this paper, we present a design for a CubeSat communication subsystem for a store-and-forward remote monitoring application that will transfer data which originates from an underwater Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) at a remote coastal location to a central hub for processing. For this design we determined the bandwidth requirements of the ADCP; performed the LEO constellation design for different orbital altitudes; determined, with the aid of AGI’s STK simulation tool, the worst-case bit-rate that can be accommodated during the visible period; explored different frequency bands for transmission with the UHF/VHF and the S-band being selected as like candidates; designed the antenna; selected transceivers for the ground station and CubeSat; and performed link budgets for the different altitudes. Additionally, the paper discusses CubeSat design considerations and other terrestrial and non-terrestrial transmission alternatives to CubeSat.

Completed