Design of a Telecommand and Telemetry System for

use on Board a Nanosatellite

Adnane Addaim, Abdelhak Kherras El Bachir Zantou

Centre for Space Research and Studies Royal Centre for Space Research and Studies
Mohammadia School of Engineers, EMI CRERS
Rabat, Morocco Rabat, Morocco
addaim@emi.ac.ma; kherras@emi.ac.ma zantou@crers.gov.ma

Abstract—The telecommand and telemetry (TM/TC) system [3] protocol (data link layer). The AX.25 packets are sent
comprises a TM/TC circuit and a commercial off the shelf over the radio links (the Physical layer), which use GMSK
(COTS) VHF Transceiver. The main functions of the TM/TC [4] (Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying) over the 145 MHz
circuit are the telecommand decoding and the telemetry (uplink and downlink) VHF band.
formatting. The need for a compact TM/TC system, on board a
Cubesat-Class Nanosatellite, poses a challenge for designing a The particularity of the Cubesat is that the solar cells will
small and light system. This paper describes the hardware and be attached to the satellite structure, thus reducing
software solution achieved to design a compact TM/TC significantly the surface area for mounting solar cells
Circuit, which is based on the fixed point Digital Signal compared to conventional satellites, which will result in less
Processor (DSP) and includes AX.25 firmware and GMSK power generation ability. In this paper, we consider the
modem. Due to the environment in space and the constraints of problem of designing a low-complexity GMSK modem for a
the Cubesat concept, different measures have to be taken when satellite communication link where the constraints on
the system is designed. available transmit power, aboard the Nanosatellite, is 1 Watt.

I. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION II. HARDWARE ACHITECTURE

The Cubesat project [1] aims to send a Nanosatellite [2], The hardware architecture of the TM/TC system is
with dimensions 10x10x10 cm3 and mass one kilogram into composed of three main parts (Fig. 2): a TM/TC circuit, built
Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The TM/TC system primary around a DSP TMS320C54x [5], Sensors and Control
mission is to provide a communications link to relay signals, and a VHF transceiver with associated antenna.
Telemetry and Telecommand operations back and forth
between the Central Ground Station (CGS) and the A. The TM/TC Circuit
Nanosatellite. The CGS sends telecommand to the OBDH The TM/TC circuit as illustrated in Fig. 2 is a logic
subsystem aboard the Nanosatellite to monitor the board, built around a 16 bits DSP TMS320VC5416 [5]
Nanosatellite and receives the telemetry (the housekeeping efficient power consumption, from Texas Instrument. The
data) from the OBDH subsystem to know the health status of DSP is especially chosen for its ease of implementing the
the Nanosatellite. physical and the data link layers, and also for the availability
The application layer (TM/TC), is carried by the AX.25 of many reports applications, which reduce the design time.
The design has the advantage of implementing GMSK
CGS Satellite modems as software, therein eliminating the need for
external modem hardware needed by other systems [7], and
Application TM/TC TM/TC
layer minimizing the dimensions of the logic board which must be
less than 10cm x 10cm. The TM/TC circuit will be built in
Data Link AX.25 AX.25
layer
two versions; an engineering model for prototype and a flight
Protocol Protocol
model for launch. The prototype is build in order to test the
Physical GMSK GMSK functionality of the hardware and debug the software. For the
layer Modem Modem
Propagation prototype Printed Circuit Board (PCB), flash memory is used
Radio/ Loss & Noise Radio/ instead of PROM memory for the flight model, which is very
antenna antenna
Radio Link robust to radiation and operating in wide range of
temperature. This is done in order to allow the developing
Figure 1. Satellite Communication Layers and testing of software without having to change PROM

1-4244-1378-8/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE. 455

 VHF
Telecommand and Telemetry circuit Antenna
PTT
TX audio
Analog FM
Sensors ADC Interface
DSP Transceiver
AIC RX audio
Control
Signals
Flash/PROM

Figure 2. Hardware Architecture of TM/TC system

each time new software were to be tested. The TLC320AC01

[8] (AIC), includes both analog to digital, and digital to III. RADIO LINK
analog converters in the one package. For the flight model, The link budget, shown in Table 1, is calculated in the
we will use TLC320AC021 [8], which is specified for worst case when the satellite is just rising above the horizon
operation from –40°C to 85°C. with the elevation angle E = 10°.
The Interface to the different sensors is done by using the
TLV2556 circuit, which is a serial Analog Digital Converter TABLE I. LINK BUDGET
(ADC) with 11 analog multiplexed channels. The serial bus,
CGS Parameters
connected to the DSP, is based on the SPI specification [6].
Antenna gain 13 dBi
The TLV2556I is characterized for operation from –40°C to Transmitted power 5W
85°C. The TM/TC circuit converts the telecommands Antenna Feed Loss 0.5 dB
received from CGS to control signals which are digital Tsyst 2000 k
outputs. Channel Parameters
All the components on the logic board are chosen with Free Space Loss 141 dB [12]
Bandwidth 15000 Hz
SMD (surface mounted device) packages for space saving
Additional Losses 3.5 dB
and high density mounting in order to minimize the weight Satellite Parameters
and dimensions of the logic board. Antenna gain 0 dBi
Transmitted power 1W
B. The Transceiver Antenna Feed Loss 0.5 dB
A COTS amateur radio transceiver was adopted to be the Tsyst 5000 k
main flight radio due to power, weight, and time constraints Operational Parameters
[9]. The transceiver, integrated inside the TM/TC system, Baud Rate 4800 baud
operates in half-duplex amateur VHF band and consists of Eb/N0 required 13.6 dB*1
Link Margin for Uplink
the "guts" of a Yaesu VX-1R [7]. Only slight modifications
Eb/N0 estimated 26.9 dB*2
will be required to make this component space worthy. The
Margin 13.3 dB
transceiver is interfaced with the TM/TC circuit by means of Link Margin for Downlink
AF (Audio Frequency) and PLL (phase looked loop) signals Eb/N0 estimated 23.9 dB*2
as illustrated by Fig. 2. AF signals consist of transmit and Margin 10.3 dB
receive signals of the GMSK modems which carry data
packet, whereas PLL command signal allow the DSP to *1
choose between the transmitting and receiving modes of the Required Eb/No gives an operating bit error rate of 10-6 [13],
radio. The AFSK/FM signal output from the transceiver is assuming non-coherent demodulation of GMSK.
fed to a turnstile antenna [10]. *2
An estimation of the Eb/No is obtained from:

C. The Antenna
It consists of two pairs of half-wavelength dipole antenna Eb P.Li .Gt .Ls .La .Gr
positioned orthogonal to each other with a relative phase = . (1)
N0 k .Ts .R
difference of 90 degree to achieve circular polarization. In
theory of transmission line, a 90-degree phase shift can be
obtained by adding a ¼ wavelength transmission line to the Where:
feed of the antenna. However, due to the limited available P = Transmitted Power Ls = Free Space Loss (FSL)
space in the satellite and to the long ¼ wavelength Li = Feed Losses R = Data rate of the system
transmission line at VHF frequencies; implementation using Ts = System temperature K = Boltzmans constant
lumped elements [11] is desirable. Gr = Receive antenna gain Gt = Transmit antenna gain
La = Tx Path Losses (Miscellaneous)

456
 VHF Band has an advantage of 10 dB compared to the modulated GMSK signal can be expressed, over the time
UHF band. So, we will need a power ten times more interval nTb ≤ t ≤ (n+1)Tb , as [4]:
significant for a UHF transmitter than for VHF transmitter.
Also, at VHF frequencies the atmosphere and ionosphere
have little effect on the propagating radio wave [14]. The  n t

s (t ) = A cos  2πf 0 t + 2πh ∑ d k ∫ g (τ − nT b ) dτ . (3)
Doppler shift is about ±3 KHz maximum, which can be
 k = −∞ −∞ 
ignored. To enhance the radio link between the CGS and the
Nanosatellite, we added a Forward Error Correction (FEC)
by using convolutional coding and Viterbi decoding. where dk: sequence of data information = ±1,

IV. DSP IMPLEMENTATION 1

g(t) = rect(t / Tb ) ⊗ hg (t)
2Tb
In this paper, we give a particular attention to software
optimization due to small amount of memory available on 1  t − Tb / 2 t + Tb / 2 
DSP. Today, “C” compilers offer many features to facilitate
=
2Tb Q(2πB ) − Q(2πB )
 ln 2 ln 2 
DSP programming but they do not guarantee the best code
optimization. We have defined a methodology approach with,
based on two design steps: algorithmic optimization, and ∞
1
−u 2

optimal programming using assembler language. By an Q (t ) = ∫ 2π

e 2
du (4)
optimal software design that takes the maximum advantages t

from DSP architecture facilities, good real time experimental

performances have been obtained for the TTC implemented hg(t) is the pulse of Gaussian function, Tb is the symbol
modules. The implemented modules include AX.25 protocol, period, B is the 3dB bandwidth of the Gaussian prefilter, and
Convolutional encoding and Viterbi decoding, GMSK g(t) is the response of the transmitted rectangular pulse to the
modulation, and GMSK demodulation. These modules were pre-modulation filter. By deriving the phase signal, the CPM
tested in real time using two DSP platforms, one for the can also be seen like Frequency Modulation (FM). The
transmission process and the other for the reception process. instantaneous frequency Fi is given by:
The used platforms are TMS320C54X DSKPlus kit [15] and
TMS320C5416 DSK kit [16], which are compatible. n
Fi (t ) = f 0 + h ∑ d k g (t − nTb ). (5)
A. AX.25 Communication Protocol k = −∞
The AX.25 protocol is based on HDLC format. The
AX.25 protocol uses the standard CRC-CCITT code based
on a 16-bit polynomial G(x) to calculate FCS field. Gaussian FM
Binary filter Modulation GMSK
input signal

G( x) = x16 + x12 + x 5 + 1. (2) Figure 4. General diagram of GMSK modulation

For CRC-CCITT code implementation on DSP [17], we In theory, the duration of Gaussian filter is infinite, but
used truncated polynomial of 0x1021 with initial value of in practice, we limit the function h(t) to the few period bits
0xFFFF. over which it is significantly not zero. This duration is
inversely proportional to B. For a product BTb = 0.5, we
consider that h(t) is not zero over 2 bits. The convolution
B. Convolutional encoding and Viterbi decoding
product of h(t) with a rectangle function of duration Tb lasts
The packet generated by the TM/TC system includes 3Tb, which affects the half preceding bit and the half
extra overhead bytes to the AX25 frames in order to following bit. The Fig. 4 represents the response of Gaussian
implement a FEC scheme, as well as interleaving and lowpass filter for BTb = 0.5 over three bits to a rectangular
sender/receiver synchronization. The FEC scheme uses the pulse of duration T.
convolutional encoding and the Viterbi decoding process.
This process is a 4-state optimal rate 1/2 convolutional code.
The C54x DSP family has a Viterbi accelerator [18], which
is an integrated hardware unit in the DSP to facilitate the
implementation of the Viterbi algorithm. This accelerator is
particularly well adapted to the Viterbi algorithm with soft-
decision data of the rate 1/2 convolutional code.

C. GMSK Modulation Time in half bit period

The GMSK modulation is a Continuous Phase
Modulation (CPM) with a modulation index h=0.5. A Figure 3. Gaussian filter respons

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 The implementation of filter convolution product 3. For each transmitted bit, 3 samples are selected from
requires multiple instruction processing inducing a lot of the central zone of the 5 samples.
calculation time. To respect timing constraints we propose an
optimized implementation code based on Lookup table of the 4. The demodulator performs the shape comparison of
Gaussian filter response (Fig. 4). For the implementing of the binary transition based on the look up tables. The minimum
GMSK modulation on DSP, we used the sampling frequency Euclidean distance de is evaluated and the decoded bit is
of 24 KHz with 5 samples per bit which corresponds to data determined. The C54x DSP family has a dedicated
rate of 4800 bps. For stream of [1 -1 -1 1 1 -1 1 -1 1 1 -1 -1 1 instruction for faster execution of the Euclidean distance.
-1 1 -1 -1], the corresponding GMSK baseband signal is
given by the Fig. 5. VI. CONCLUSION
The present work, dealing with the design of the TM/TC
system, shows hardware and software solutions adopted to
cut down the Nanosatellite cost. The hardware utilizes
commercial low cost components and the software is
optimized using assembler language. The TM/TC system is
small device that can be mounted on any small satellite [2]
Figure 5. Baseband GMSK output signal platform to serve Telecommand and Telemetry operations.

V. GMSK DEMODULATION REFERENCES

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