Types of Satellite System Orbits

• Satellites have been put in space for various purposes and their placement in
space and orbiting shapes have been determined as per their specific
requirements.

• GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit) at about 36,000km above the earth's surface.
• LEO (Low Earth Orbit) at about 500-1500km above the earth's surface.
• MEO (Medium Earth Orbit) or ICO (Intermediate Circular Orbit) at about 6000-20,000 km above
the earth's surface.
• HEO (Highly Elliptical Orbit)
 Types of Satellite Systems
1. GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit)
• If a satellite should appear in fixed in the sky, it requires a period of 24 hours.
Using the equation of distance earth and satellite, r = (g.r2 /2.r.f)2)1/3 and the
period of 24 hours f = 1/24 h. the resulting distance is 35,786 km. the orbit must
have an inclination of 0 degree.

• Geostationary satellites have a distance of almost 36,000 km to the earth.

Examples are almost all TV and radio broadcast satellites, any weather satellites
and satellites operating as backbones for the telephone network.

• Objects in GEO moves around the earth at the same speed as the earth rotates.
This means geostationary satellites remain in the same position relative to the
surface of earth.
 Types of Satellite Systems

Advantages of GEO satellite

• Three Geostationary satellites are enough for a complete coverage of
almost any spot on earth.
• Receivers and senders can use fixed antenna positions, no adjusting is
needed.
• GEOs are ideal for TV and radio broadcasting.
• Lifetime expectations for GEOs are rather high, at about 15 years.
• Geostationary satellites have a 24 hour view of a particular area.
• GEOs typically do not need handover due to the large footprints.
• GEOs don't exhibit any Doppler shift because the relative movement is
zero.
 Types of Satellite Systems

• Disadvantages of GEO satellite

• Northern or southern regions of the earth have more problems receiving these
satellites due to the low elevation above latitude of 60 degree, i.e. larger
antennas are needed in this case.
• Shading of the signals in cities due to high buildings and the low elevation
further away from the equator limits transmission quality.
• The transmit power needed is relatively high (about 10 W) which causes
problems for battery powered devices.
• These satellites can't be used for small mobile phones.
• The biggest problem for voice and also data communication is high latency of
over 0.25s one way-retransmission schemes which are known from fixed
networks fail.
• Transferring a GEO into orbit is very expensive.
 Types of Satellite Systems
2. LEO (Low Earth Orbit)
• As LEOs circulate on a lower orbit, it is obvious that they exhibit a much shorter
period (the typical duration of LEO periods are 95 to 120 minutes). Additionally,
LEO systems try to ensure a high elevation for every spot on earth to provide a
high quality communication link.
• Each LEO satellite will only be visible from the earth for about ten minutes.
• A further classification of LEOs into little LEOs with low bandwidth services (some
100 bit/s), big LEOs (some 1,000 bit/s) and broadband LEOs with plans reaching
into the Mbits/s range can be found in Comparetto (1997).
• LEO satellites are much closer to earth than GEO satellites, ranging from 500 to
1,500 km above the surface. LEO satellites do not stay in fixed position relative to
the surface, and are only visible for 15 to 20 minutes each pass.
 Types of Satellite Systems

Advantages of LEO satellite

• Using advanced compression schemes, transmission rates of about 2,400 bit/s
can be enough for voice communication.
• LEOs even provide this bandwidth for mobile terminals with omni-directional
antennas using low transmit power in the range of 1 W.
• A LEO satellite smaller area of coverage is less of a waste of bandwidth.
• Using advanced compression schemes, transmission rates of about 2,400 bit/s
can be enough for voice communication.
• A LEO satellite's proximity to earth compared to a Geostationary satellite gives
it a better signal strength and less of a time delay, which makes it better for
point to point communication.
• Smaller footprints of LEOs allow for better frequency reuse, similar to the
concepts used for cellular networks.
 Types of Satellite Systems

Disadvantages of LEO satellite

• The biggest problem of the LEO concept is the need for many satellites if global coverage is
to be reached.
• The high number of satellites combined with the fast movement's results in a high
complexity of the whole satellite system.
• The short time of visibility with a high elevation requires additional mechanism for
connection handover between different satellites.
• One general problem of LEO is the short lifetime of about five to eight years due to
atmospheric drag and radiation from the inner Van Allen belt.
• The low latency via a single LEO is only half of the story.
• Other factors are the need for routing of data packets from satellite to satellite (or several
times from base stations to satellites and back) if a user wants to communicate around the
world.
• A GEO typically does not need this type of routing, as senders and receivers are most likely
in the same footprints.
 Types of Satellite Systems

MEO (Medium Earth Orbit)

• A MEO satellite situates in orbit somewhere between 6,000 km to 20,000 km
above the earth's surface.
• MEO satellites are similar to LEO satellites in the context of functionality.
• MEO satellites are similar to LEO satellite in functionality.
• Medium earth orbit satellites are visible for much longer periods of time than
LEO satellites usually between 2 to 8 hours.
• MEO satellites have a larger coverage area than Low Earth Orbit satellites.
• MEOs can be positioned somewhere between LEOs and GEOs, both in terms of
their orbit and due to their advantages and disadvantages.
 Types of Satellite Systems

Advantages of MEO
• Using orbits around 10,000km, the system only requires a dozen satellites which is more
than a GEO system, but much less than a LEO system.
• These satellites move more slowly relative to the earth's rotation allowing a simpler
system design (satellite periods are about six hours).
• Depending on the inclination, a MEO can cover larger populations, so requiring fewer
handovers.
• A MEO satellite's longer duration of visibility and wider footprint means fewer satellites
are needed in a MEO network than a LEO network.
Disadvantages of MEO
• Again due to the larger distance to the earth, delay increases to about 70-80 ms.
• The satellites need higher transmit power and special antennas for smaller footprints.
• A MEO satellite's distance gives it a longer time delay and weaker signal than LEO
satellite.
 Satellite System infrastructure

Satellite System infrastructure

• There are many groups of items that enable a satellite infrastructure to work. A
detailed examination is needed to understand the operation of the overall
system.
• An example diagram representation of a satellite system is shown in the below
figure, with numerous components shown explicitly:
Satellite System infrastructure
 Satellite System infrastructure

• Once a contact has been established between a mobile system and a satellite using a LOS beam,
almost everyone in the world can be accessed, using the underlying hardware backbone network on
the surface of the earth.
• The satellites are controlled by the base stations (BS) located at the surface of the earth, which serves
as a gateway.
• Inter-satellite links can be used to relay information from one satellite to another, but they are still
controlled by the ground BS (also known as earth station or ES).
• The illuminated area of a satellite beam, called a footprint, is the area within which a mobile user can
communicate with the satellite; many beams are used to cover a wide area.
• In addition, satellites are constantly rotating around the earth, and a beam may be temporarily
blocked either due to other flying objects or the terrain of the earth's surface. Therefore, a
redundancy concept, known as diversity, is used to transmit the same message through more than
one satellite, as shown in the above figure.
• The basic idea behind path diversity is to provide a mechanism that can combine two or more
correlated information signals (primarily the same copy) traveling along different paths and hence
having uncorrected noise and/or fading characteristics. Such a combination of two signals improves
signal quality, which enables the receiver to have flexibility in selecting a better quality signal.
Satellite System infrastructure
 Satellite System infrastructure
• The primary interest is with path diversity, though other forms of diversity such as
antenna, time, frequency, field, or code, are possible. Path diversity will depend
on the technology that is used to transmit and receive messages.

• The use of diversity can be initiated by either the MS or the BS located on earth.
The diversity request from the BS (ES) enables the MS to locate and scan un-
shadowed satellite paging channels for unobstructed communication.

• This kind of situation cannot be detected or determined by the BS, even though
the MS's location is known to the BS. The use of satellite path diversity may be
primarily due to the following conditions:
 Satellite System infrastructure

1.Elevation angle: Higher elevation angle decreases shadowing problems. One

approach is to initiate path diversity when the elevation angle becomes less than
predefined threshold.
2.Signal quality: If the average signal level (in DB), quality (in BER), or fade duration
goes beyond some threshold, then path diversity can be used. Signal quality is a
function of parameters such as elevation angle, available capacity, current mobility
pattern of the MS, or anticipated future demand.
3.Stand-by option: A channel can be selected and reserved as a stand-by for
diversity whenever a threshold crossing is detected by the MS. Such a standby
channel is used only when the primary channel is obstructed. Since the use of
diversity is considered a rare event, several MSs can share the same standby
channel.
4.Emergency handoff: Whenever a connection of a MS with a satellite is lost, the MS
with satellite is lost; the MS tries to have an emergency handoff.
Satellite System Architecture
 Satellite System Architecture

• The ES (BS) constituting the heart of the overall system control. The ES performs
functions similar to the BSS of a cellular wireless system.
• The ES keeps track of all MSs located in the area and controls the allocation and
de-allocation of radio resources. This includes the use of frequency band or
channel in FDMA, time slot for TDMA, the code assignment for CDMA.
• Both MSC and VLR are important parts of the BS and provide functions similar to
those for the cellular network.
• The database EIR (Equipment Identity register), AUC (Authentication Center) , and
HLR also perform the same operations as in conventional wireless systems and
are an integral part of the overall satellite system.
• The HLR-VLR (Home Location Register - Visitor Location Register) pair supports
the basic process of mobility management.
 Satellite System Architecture

• A satellite user mapping register (SUMR) is also maintained at the BS to note the
locations of all satellites and to indicate the satellite assigned to each MS.

• All these systems are associated with the BS to minimize the weight of satellites.

• In fact, satellites can be considered to function as relay stations with a worldwide

coverage, given that most of the intelligence and decision- making process is
performed by the BS.

• These BSs are also connected to the PSTN (Public Switching Telephone Network)
and ATM backbone through the appropriate gateway so that calls to regular
household phones as well as to cellular devices can be routed and established.
 Satellite System Architecture

• Several additional situations are present for handoff in satellite systems as compared
with cellular wireless networks, primarily due to the movement of satellites and the
wider coverage area. Various types of handoff can be summarized as follows:
1. Intra - satellite handoff: There could be handoff from one spot beam to another due to relative
movement of the MS with respect to the satellites because the MS needs to be in the footprint area
to communicate with a satellite. Therefore MS moves to the footprint path of another beam, there
would be an intra-satellite handoff.
2. Inter - satellite handoff: Since the MS is mobile and most satellites are not geosynchronous, the
beam path may change periodically. Therefore there could be a handoff from one satellite to another
satellite under control of the BS.
3. BS handoff: A rearrangement in frequency may be desirable to balance the traffic in neighboring
beams or the interference with other systems. There could be situations in which satellite control
may change from one BS to another because of their relative locations. This may cause a handoff at
the BS level, even though the MS may still be in the footprint of current satellite.
4. Inter-system handoff: There could be a handoff from a satellite network to a terrestrial cellular
network, which would be cheaper and would have a lower latency.