DVB-RCS TECHNOLOGY

OVER
SATELLITE COMMUNICATION

Project By: Guided By:

Gajjar Rushikesh Mr.N.D.Acharay Sir
D10557(4451) Mr.P.M.Prajapati Sir
ABOUT COMPANY

• Company Mission:
• Infinium (India) Ltd is committed to provide high quality, technically
advanced customized turnkey systems, solutions and services in the field
of Broadband Satellite Communications.

• These solutions and services also include VSATs used for Voice, Video,
Data, Internet and Broadcast services working in Fixed, Transportable,
Mobile and Rural Environment.

• Infinium (India) Ltd continuously strives in its endeavor to achieve the

highest level of “Customer Satisfaction”
Technology & Infrastructure
• This group gets involved in setting up the network on turn key basis, right
from designing to commissioning the setup. Usually such projects involve
finances, complex procedures and sometimes approvals from various
regulatory authorities. Infinium has been commended by ISRO,
Government of India (GOI) and various other organizations for meticulous
implementation of projects such as Edusat and Telemedicine.

• Turnkey resposibility include hardware, peripherals, antenna assembly and

routers required to maintain continuous connectivity of the networks under
AMC. Usually, large projects are implemented as a pilot project which is
then scaled up.
VERY SMALL APERTURE
TERMINAL (VSAT)
What is a VSAT?
• The term Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) refers to a small fixed
earth station. VSATs provide the vital communication link required to set
up a satellite based communication network. VSATs can support any
communication requirement be it voice, data, or video conferencing.

• The VSAT comprises of two modules - an outdoor unit and an indoor unit.
The outdoor unit consists of an Antenna and Radio Frequency Transceiver.
(RFT). The antenna size is typically 1.8 metre or 2.4 metre in diameter,
although smaller antennas are also in use. The indoor unit functions as a
modem and also interfaces with the end user equipment like stand alone
PCs, LANs, Telephones or an EPABX.

• VSATs can typically be divided into two parts- an outdoor unit and an
indoor unit. The outdoor unit is generally ground or even wall mounted
and the indoor unit which is the size of a desktop computer is normally
located near existing computer equipment in your office.
Why VSAT?
VSAT networks provides:

• Reliability in transmission of data (data, voice, video)

• Allocation of resources to different users (bandwidth, amplification power)

• Fixed network solutions at reasonable price (eg. voice channel at 3-15

cents/min.)

• Provide point-to-multipoint (broadcast), multipoint-to-point (data collection),

point-to-point communications and broadband multimedia services.

• Serviced in land area which are difficult to install (remote locations ,water areas).

• An ability to have direct access to users and user premises.

VSAT specification
Antenna diameter : 0.6m – 3.8m
Traffic Capacity : 9.6Kbps – 2Mbps
Frequency Bands : C-band (4-6Ghz),
Ku-Band (12-14Ghz),
Ka-Band (20-30Ghz)
Use of satellite : Geo-stationary satellite
(36,000km above equator)
Network : Point-to-point
Configuration : Point-to-multipoint
Equipment List :
– Antenna;
– Outdoor Unit (High Power Amplifier (HPA), Low Noise Amplifier (LNA),
Solid-State Power Amplifier (SSPA))
– Indoor Unit (chassis)
Note :
• Antenna size is used to describe the ability of the antenna to amplify the signal
strength;
 VSAT NETWORK
CONFIGURATIONS
To be continue

• VSATs are connected by radio frequency (RF) links via a satellite, with a
so-called uplink from the station to the satellite and a so-called downlink
from the satellite to the station
• Basically the satellite receives the uplinked carriers from the transmitting
earth stations within the field of view of its receiving antenna, amplifies
those carriers, translates their frequency to a lower band in order to avoid
possible output/input interference, and transmits the amplified carriers to
the stations located within the field of view of its transmitting antenna.
To be continue

• one must take into account the following limitations:

• – Typically 200 dB carrier power attenuation on the uplink and the
downlink as a result of the distance to and from a geostationary satellite;
• – Limited satellite transponder radio frequency power, typically a few tens
of watts;
• – Small size of the VSAT, which limits its transmitted power and its
receiving sensitivity.
• As a result of the above, it may well be that the demodulated signals at the
receiving VSAT do not match the quality requested by the user terminals.
Therefore direct links from VSAT to VSAT may not be acceptable.
Types of VSAT
• There are two types of VSAT Satellite :-

(i) Bi-Directional Operation - The dish both sends (uplinks) and receives
(downlinks) information.

(ii) Receive-Only Operation - The dish receives (downlinks) information

only
VSAT Topology
• STAR - the hub station controls and monitors can communicates with a
large number of dispersed VSATs. Generally, the Data Terminal
Equipment and 3 hub antenna is in the range of 6-11m in diameter. Since
all VSATs communicate with the central hub station only, this network is
more suitable for centralized data applications.

• MESH - a group of VSATs communicate directly with any other VSAT in

the network without going through a central hub. A hub station in a mesh
network performs only the monitoring and control functions. These
networks are more suitable for telephony applications.

• HYBRID Network - In practice usually using hybrid networks, where a

part of the network operates on a star topology while some sites operate on
a mesh topology, thereby accruing benefits of both topologies.
VSAT Spectrum
• Three ranges of spectrum make up VSAT, there are :-
(1) C - Band with its frequency band of 5.925 to 6.425GHZ
(uplink) and 3.700 to 4.200GHZ (downlink).
•
(2) KU - Band with its frequency band of 14.000 to
14.500GHZ (uplink) and 10.950 to 11.700GHZ (downlink).
•
(3) Extended C - Band with its frequency band of 6.725 to
7.025GHZ (uplink) and 4.500 to 4.800GHZ (downlink).
VSAT Characteristics & Advantages
Reliability: reliable satellite transmission of data, voice and video between
an unlimited number of geographically dispersed sites or from these sites
to headquarters

Flexibility: The VSAT networks offer enormous expansion capabilities;

On the other hand, VSATs offer unrestricted and unlimited reach.
Additional VSATs can be rapidly installed to support the network
expansion to any site, no matter however remote.

Network Management: Network monitoring and control of the entire

VSAT network is much simpler than a network of leased lines, easily
integrates end-to-end monitoring and configuration control for all network
subsystems.
VSAT Characteristics & Advantages
A low mean-time to repair - few hours, compare to leased lines which extends
up to a few days. Essentially, lesser elements imply lower MTTR. Uptime of
up to 99.5 percent is achievable on a VSAT network. This is significantly
higher than the typical leased line uptime of approximately 80-85%.

Cost: VSAT network offers significant savings over 2-3 years timeframe. The
service charges depend on the bandwidth which is allocated to the network in
line with customer requirements.

Link Budgets: RF equipment would cater to the requirements of the network

topology and satellite modems in use. The link Budget estimates the ground
station and satellite EIRP (Effective Isotropic Radiated Power) required.
Calculations of signal levels through the system to ensure the quality of service
should normally be done, prior to the establishment of a satellite link.
ACCESSING SCHEME FOR
SATELLITE COMMUNICATION
• The objective of VSAT networks is to maximize the use of common satellite and other
resources amongst all VSAT sites.
• The method by optimizing the use of satellite capacity, and spectrum utilization in a
flexible and cost-effective manner (referred as satellite access schemes.)
• There are six types of Accessing Scheme for Satellite Communication are given
below:
• TDMA
• FDMA
2.1PAMA
2.2DAMA
2.3CDMA
• MF-TDMA
TDMA (time-division multiple
access)
• When numerous remote sites communicate with one central hub, this
design is similar to packet-switched networks.

• Because of competition with one another for access to the central hub, it
restrict the maximum bandwidth to most cases is about 19.2 kbps.

• all VSATs share satellite resource on a time-slot basis.

• Usually used in STAR topology as a transmission technique.

• Offered to domestic needs.

 TDMA (time-division multiple access)

Copyright Maxis

The VSAT Hub communicates with all dispersed VSATs (typically a 1.8-meter diameter
parabolic-shaped dish) on an outgoing channel of up to 512kbps based on the TDM scheme.
The incoming or return channel from the dispersed VSATs uses the TDMA channel
technology that enables a large number of the respective VSATs to share this single return
channel. The incoming routes typically operate at 128kbps, and can go up to a maximum
 TDMA (time-division multiple access)

Copyright Maxis

Petrol stations, information providers, retail chains, financial institutions and any large
corporation that requires transfers of low to medium rate data applications between its head
office and, local and outstation branch offices. Example of Point of Sales (POS
transactions), Credit Card Verification, Reservations Systems
Financial and Banking applications (teller, loans, ATM) etc.
 FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple
Access)
• oldest method for channel allocation
• the satellite channel bandwidth is broken into frequency bands for different
earth stations
• the earth stations must be carefully power-controlled to prevent the
microwave power spilling into the bands for the other channels. Here, all
VSATs share the satellite resource on the frequency domain only.

3 type:
• PAMA (Pre-Assigned Multiple Access);
• DAMA (Demand Assigned Multiple Access); and
• CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access).
MF-TDMA (Multi Frequency time-
division multiple access)
• Multimedia traffic provides a very demanding environment for scheduling
traffic on the return path, to both provide guaranteed capacity for RT (Real
Time) connections and to minimize the response delay for the
unpredictable short bursts of Internet browser traffic.
• This type of rapid assignment on demand is ideally suited to a Time
Division Multiple Access (TDMA) return link. However, pure (single
carrier) TDMA requires high burst rates to accommodate all user terminals,
which results in a high transmit EIRP and expensive terminals.
• A compromise is to use Multi-Frequency TDMA (MF-TDMA), in which a
terminal transmits at a much lower burst rate, but must be able to switch
between multiple carriers between transmit bursts. The structure of a MF-
TDMA frame, referred to as a DVB-RCS super frame is shown in Figure
Timeslots are grouped in frames of fixed duration, 26.5 ms
MF-TDMA (Multi Frequency time-
division multiple access)
• There are two types of slots, overhead and traffic slots
– Overhead slots are used to support the network entry and
synchronization functions including the CSC, ACQ and SYNC bursts
which are located at the start of each Superframe

– The traffic slots support the capacity for user traffic bursts; one burst
per timeslot
MF-TDMA (Multi Frequency time-
division multiple access)
• Common Signalling Channel CSC
– Used by SIT to enter the network

• Acquisition ACQ
– Used to synchronize a SIT to the network

• SYNC
– Used to synchronize and maintain synchronization of a SIT

• Traffic TRF
– Used to carry user traffic, one or two ATM cells per burst, or one
MPEG packet per burst
 Opportunities in VSAT
technology
• Voice over IP (VoIP) via satellite

• Frame Relay via satellite

• ATM via satellite

• Video-on-demand via satellite

• Multimedia application
– Internet/e-mail connection
– Telemedicine
– Distance learning
 DVB-RCS NETWORK
OVERVIEW
• A DVB-RCS network is a satellite-based communications system that provides
interconnection between users who are exchanging real time applications based on
several data types (e.g. text, voice, images, video etc…). There are two transmission
paths, the Forward Channel from a centralized Hub location to the remote location
and a Return Channel from the remote location to the central Hub.

• The DVB-RCS system standard underwent final standardization by the European

Telecommunications Standards Institute in 2000. The standard calls for a forward
link based on a DVB/MPEG-2 data format and a return link using Multi-Frequency
– Time Division Multiple Access (MF-TDMA) scheme, allowing a two-way
exchange of data. The DVB/MPEG-2 format carries up to 80 Mbps in the forward
link and the MF-TDMA scheme allows up to 8 Mbps per carrier in the return
direction.

• The network consists of a central earth station Hub station, one or more satellites in
the forward direction, a Satellite Interactive Terminal (SIT) at the remote location,
and a satellite in the return direction.
 DVB-RCS SYSTEM
• A DVB-RCS SYSTEM Consists of 3 Parts

• Return Link Sub-System (RLSS)

– Receives return link communications from SITs
– Handles SIT Logon / SIT Synchronization
– Allocates return link capacity

• Forward Link Sub-System (FLSS)

– Sends forward link communications to SITs
– Used by the RLSS to send control information to SITs

• Internet Protocol Sub-System (IPSS)

– Provides Receives return link traffic from RLSS TRF
– Routes IP packets towards appropriate destination
– Provides routing for forward link multicast
– Provides the infrastructure for the management network
 Gateway System Overview
A01 A01 SMS 2
A02 A02 CM 2
Blank
A03 A03 SMS 1
A04 A04 CM 1
A05 A05 Cable Entry

Management
A06
A07
A08
Blank
A06
A07
A08
Main Router 1

Packet Shaper 1
A09 Blank A09
A10 Blank A10 Cable Entry
A11 Blank A11
Aux Router 1
A12 A12
A13 Blank A13 PEP1
A14
A15
A16
Blank

Blank
A14
A15
A16
Cable Entry
Main Router 2
IPSS
A17 Blank A17
Packet Shaper 2
A18 Blank A18
A19 GPS A19 Cable Entry
A20 GPS A20
Aux Router 2
A21 Optional DVB Demod 2 / Blank A21
A22 Optional DVB Demod 1 / Blank A22 PEP2
A23 Blank A23 Control Server 2/ CMS 2
A24 Blank A24 KVM - Monitor and Keyboard
A25 Signal Distribution Unit 2 A25 Control Server 1 / CMS 1
A26 Signal Distribution Unit 1 A26 Blank
A27 A27 RF Switch 1
A28 CPCI Sub Rack A28 DVB Mod 1-2
A29 A29
IPE 1-2

RLSS A30
A31
A32
RLU 1 RLU 2
A30
A31
A32
DVB Mod 1-1
IPE 1-1
A33 A33
A34 A34 ASI Switch 1
A35
A36
A35
A36
Blank
RF Switch 2
FLSS
A37 CPCI Power Supply 2 A37 DVB Mod 2-2
A38 CPCI Power Supply 1 A38
IPE 2-2
A39 Cable Entry A39
A40 Power Supply Sub-rack A40 DVB Mod 2-1
A41 A41
IPE 2-1
A42 Fan MIF MIF Fan A42
A43 A43 ASI Switch 2
Gateway Diagrams
MAC layer - Signalling
Network layer - Traffic
Management OAM Satellite

Gateway
Mgt OAM RLSS
DMD
TRF Satellite dish

IPSS SIG PCR

DVB
ISP IPE Ins
Mod
Satellite dish

FLSS
Hub
IDU
NMS
RLSS Overview

Satellite Satellite

Forward Link
Sub-System Return Link Sub-Sytem
RLSS

PCR DVB
ASI Inserter ASI
Mod

Satellite dish
SIG
OAM
ASI Controller PCR Monitor
and (optional)
Cloud
Scheduler Satellite dish
DMD
IP Sub-System

SIG
DMD
SIT
DMD
Satellite dish

TRF
DMD
DMD
L-Band

Network Management OAM

 RLSS Overview
• The RLSS is the part of a DVB-RCS gateway responsible for the return link
– Receives return link communications from SITs and forwards it to an IP
network
– Handle SIT logon / SIT synchronization
– Allocates return link capacity
– Uses the forward link to send control information to SITs
• The RLSS subdivide into five functional cores
– OA&M – Operation, Administration and Maintenance including the
optional PCR Monitor function
– PCR Inserter core
– Signalling Core – Controller/scheduler and Receiver signalling
functionality
– Demodulator Core
– Traffic Core
• User interface is provided by either HTTP and/or SNMP.
 RLSS Overview
• OA&M
– Responsible for initializing, configuring and monitoring all aspects of
RLSS operation
– Functions as the HTTP server and SNMP agent
– Interfaces with third party NMS when present
– Supports the optional PCR Monitor function
• Receives PCR packets from the forward link
• Computes the Hub to Satellite propagation delay

• PCR inserter

– Provides the timing reference of the system to SITs

– Inserts PCR packets in the forward link transport stream

 RLSS Overview
• Demodulator Core
– The MF-TDMA IF module (MIF) board which down converts the
input L-band signal from the satellite return link to baseband and
converts the resulting signal into digital form.
– The multi-carrier demodulator (MCD) board which demodulates
several carriers, extracts the traffic and signalling data and provides
these to the signalling (SIG) and traffic (TRF) cores.
– An RLSS unit can contain up to 5 demodulators, each one handling
multiple carriers

• Signaling Core
– Controller /Scheduler function
– Receiver Signaling processing
– Forward Signaling Handler
 RLSS Overview
• Signalling Core
– Receiver
• Receives the SITs return link signalling communications decoded
in the DMD cores
• Forwards signalling to the Controller/Scheduler

• Signalling Core
– Controller/Scheduler
• Controls SIT access to the network
– SIT login
– SIT Synchronization
• Allocates return link capacity to SITs
• Generates all forward link signalling
• Generates the PCR packet place holder to be re-stamped by the
PCR Inserter
 RLSS Overview
• Signalling Core
– Forward Signalling Handler
• Generates the MPEG tables containing the Composition Tables
– SCT, FCT, TCT, and SPT
– TIM, CMT, TBTP
– Generates a PAT and PMT

• Traffic Core
– Receives the return link traffic from the DMD cores
– The processor handles the traffic bursts extracted by the demodulator
– Forwards ATM cells or MPEG packets to an IP network
 FLSS Overview
• The Forward Link Subsystem (FLSS) is responsible for handling traffic
and signaling information in the Forward Link.

• It consists of an IP Encapsulator / Multiplexer and of a DVB Modulator

Function

• Functions
– IP Traffic Encapsulation, Table Generation Multiplexing and
Modulation
– The FLSS receives the IP traffic from the Router and the signaling
tables from the RLSS’ Signalling (SIG)
– The FLSS also generates some DVB SI tables containing information
about the structure of network and other information required by the
SITs to acquire the Forward Link.
 FLSS Overview
• Functions
– The output of the Multiplexer is sent to the RLSS PCR Inserter which
adds the PCR time stamp.
– The PCR inserter also restamps all other PCR packets that may be present
in the Transport Stream
– The PCR Inserter output is then modulated in a DVB-S compliant manner
and delivered to the RF sub system to be transmitted to the satellite.

• IP Traffic Encapsulation
– The Forward Link (FL) of a satellite interactive network is DVB-S
compliant and relies on MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) packets for
information delivery.

– 188 byte MPEG TS packets are used as containers for delivering traffic
and signaling in the FL.
Forward Link Subsystem

FLSS

F ro m S IT
RLSS
H ost
ODU

PCR Inserter

DVB Mod.
T r a ffic Tx RF ID U

IP/DVB

MUX
MUX
1 0 B a s e -T

IP IP

IE E E
R o u tin g M PE IE E E
8 0 2 .3 T a b le 8 0 2 .3
M PE M P E G -T S
E th e rn e t E th e rn e t
M P E G -T S D V B -S D V B -S
T r a ffic
 FLSS OVERVIEW
• The FL carries two forms of information for the SITs: Traffic and
Signaling.

– Signaling information is partly received from the SIG of the RLSS and
partly generated and/or streamed out locally by the FLSS.
– Traffic is in the form of IP datagrams carried on top of lower layer
protocols (Ethernet). This traffic is received from the Router, which
connects the Hub to the “outside” world.
– The IP traffic is put into TS packets using Multiprotocol Encapsulation
(MPE) via DSM-CC sections.
– This protocol defines the way to put one complete IP packet in one
section for transmission.
– Sections are blocks of data that are directly divided into Transport
Stream packets.
– At this stage, PIDs are allocated to the Transport Streams (TS) carrying
the traffic.
 Internet Protocol Sub-
System Overview
• The IPSS can be made up of various networking devices including the
following:

– 1 or more Switch Routers

– 1 or more Traffic Shaper devices

– 1 or more PEP servers

– Other application servers.

THE B/D OF DVB-RCS
HUB