Satellite Sub-systems

Although the main purpose of communication satellites is to provide communication services,

meaning that the communication sub-system is the most important sub-system of a
communication satellite, for communication satellites to function properly, they must include
many important subsystems other than the communication sub-system. The following is a
description of the main sub-subsystems of a communication satellite.

5)

Satellite Antennas

Every satellite regardless of its purpose (weather, communication, spy, International

Space Station, Hubble telescope, ) need antennas for sure. If a device has some
communication equipment for it to communicate with Earth or some other object in
space, it needs antennas to transmit/receive electromagnetic signals. In fact, the same
thing applies to Earth stations that need to communicate with satellites.
Antennas vary in shape, characteristics, and purpose of use. Some antennas are designed
for broadcasting to a very wide area around the antenna, some antennas are designed to
broadcast to a relatively small region in a specific direction, while some other antennas
may be used for transmitting/receiving from almost a single point. Because of that,
usually a satellite will carry several types of antennas at once.
Antennas on satellites may be a combination of several types including:

o Wire Antennas: These antennas are simply constructed from one of more pieces
of wires (or some metallic rods). These antennas are characterized by being non
direction (meaning that they
transmit in all directions around
the wire). If a wire antenna is
placed in a vertical direction,
the
antenna
transmits
horizontally in all direction
around the antenna. Simple
wire antennas may be either
mono-poles or dipoles. A
monopole is a single wire while
a dipole is made out of two
wires as shown to the right.
Wire antennas are usually used
in circumstances where you
would like to either transmit in
all directions/receive from all
directions or to transmit
to/receive from a specific
direction in which the position
of the antenna may be random.

o Horn Antennas: These antennas are

directional antennas meaning that
they are able to concentrate
transmitted power in case of
transmission or receive from a
specific direction in case of
reception. Horn antennas are used in
applications
where
some
directionality is needed but is not
suitable for highly directional
applications
because
the
directionality of horn antennas is limited.

o Reflector Antennas: These antennas can be

made to be highly directional with the
ability to target a specific satellite for
transmission from an Earth station, for
example, among several adjacent satellites
that are separated from the target satellite by
a very small angle as seen from the Earth
station. These antennas are composed of a
horn antenna (as shown above) and a
reflector that reflects the transmission from
the horn antenna in case of transmission or
collects the transmission into the horn
antenna in case of reception. For efficient
transmission/reception using a reflector
antenna, the size of the reflector must be
large enough to reflect most of the
transmission of the horn antenna (i.e., all or
most of the power transmitted by the horn antenna hits the reflector and reflects
back). Reflector antennas are used in applications that require very high
directionality either to be able to transmit high power, for example, even if the
power being fed to the antenna is low or to be able to select a target
satellite/Earth station by the antenna among many adjacent ones. The reflector
part of this antenna can either be spherical (usually used for achieving high gain
and high directionality), or parabolic (sometimes used to shape the transmission
pattern of the antenna to provide coverage to a specific geographical region for
example).

o Array Antennas: This type of antennas

is the most sophisticated and most
advanced of the above antennas. This is a
directional antenna that is not only
capable of transmitting to/receiving from
a specific direction, but also is capable of
changing
the
direction
of
its
transmission/reception without changing

the physical direction of the antenna. Not only that, but this type of antennas is
capable of transmitting to/receiving from different points simultaneously
simulating the performance of multiple directional antennas at the same time and
being able to track the position of different transmitters/receivers. This antenna is
used in applications where it is desired to track a satellite electronically, for
example, in the sky without the physical movement of the antenna parts, or when
transmission to several points is desired at the same time.

Important Antenna-Related Terms

The following terms related to antennas are of importance and need to be understood very well:

Radiation Pattern of an Antenna: This is the plot of the field strength in the far field
(plotted in dB below maximum value) in different directions around the antenna when the
antenna is driven by a transmitter versus the
rotation angle. The following plots represent
the radiation patterns of several types of
antennas:
o Isotropic Antennas: These antennas
are infinitesimally small spheres,
which means that they are only
theoretical and cannot be implemented
in reality. They radiate power in all
direction around the antenna equally as
shown to the right.

Wire Antennas (Omni-Directional

Antennas): The radiation pattern
observed in the horizontal plane of
a simple wire antenna that is
placed vertically is a circle because
it radiates equally in all directions.
However, when observed in the
vertical plain, it radiates maximum
amount of power in the direction
perpendicular to the antenna as
seen to the right.

Top
View

Omni-Directional
Antenna

Side
View

Horn Antenna

Horn Antennas: The radiation

pattern of these antennas is shown to
the right.

Reflector Antenna: The typical

radiation pattern of spherical
reflector antenna is shown to the
right.

Array Antenna: The radiation pattern

of this type of antenna is not fixed
and changes depending on the driving
signals to the different elements of the
antenna array. It may be something
like the figure shown to the right at a
specific time and direction of the
different beams may be changing
with time to track specific targets.

Reflector
Antenna

Antenna Gain (G): Gain is a term that is usually associated with active electronic
components such as amplifiers. When gain is used in the context of antennas, it refers to
the ability of an antenna to concentrate its transmitted power in a specific direction. An
isotropic antenna, which radiates equal power in all directions (around, up, down) as
shown above has a gain of 1 (0 dB). Any other type of antenna concentrates its
transmission in specific direction(s) resulting in having a gain that is greater than 1
(> 0 dB). The gain of an antenna is always considered to be the ratio of largest
concentration of power it radiates among all direction over the power radiated by an
isotropic antenna that is supplied with the same input power.

Antenna Boresight: is the direction over which an antenna radiates maximum power. In
any practical communication system, this direction for a receiving antenna is always

adjusted such that it points to the transmitting antenna while for a transmitting antenna
this direction is always adjusted such that it points to the receiving antenna.

Reciprocity: This basically states that an antenna that is operating as a transmitting

antenna will have the same transmission gain, transmission radiation pattern,
transmission boresight, . as a similar antenna that is operating as a receiving antenna
will have when operating at the same frequency.

Beamwidth ( ): This is the angle over which an antenna concentrates its power. Since
an the power transmission profile of an antenna usually drops slowly (like the passband
of a real filter), the beamwidth is usually measured as the angle between the directions
over which the transmitted power drops to one half of its maximum and this would be
called the 3dB beamwidth.

Typical Parameters of Different Antennas

Depending on your application, you would usually pick an antenna that is suits your needs. The
choice of the proper antenna for your application depends on which of them satisfy your
requirements. The following table shows typical parameters including gain, beamwidth, of
different antennas.
(References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_antenna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array

Antenna Type
Isotropic
Omni-directional
Horn
Reflector
Array

Typical Max Gain (Gmax)

1 (0 dB) [Fixed]
10 (10 dB)
100 (20 dB)
10,000 (40 dB) or more
1000 (30 dB)

Typical Beamwidth 3dB(min)

N/A
N/A
20
1 or less
5

What Antennas are Used in Satellite Systems

It is rare that a satellite will carry only one type of antennas. Often, several types of antennas are
used on a single satellite. So, what type of antenna is used for each application on a satellite? In
the following discussion, we answer this question.

Omni-directional: This type of antennas is very used for applications where you want to
transmit to the satellite/receive from the satellite from any direction. This would be the
case for the Telemetry, Tracking, Command, and Monitoring (TTC & M) Sub-system.

The reason is that if the satellite is not in the proper attitude, it would not be able to
receive from Earth or transmit to Earth if it is using a directional antenna so a nondirectional antenna is used for this application to insure that the satellite would be able to
communicate with the Earth station regardless of its attitude.

Horn Antennas: This type is used to provide transmission coverage or (reception

coverage) to a relatively wide region on Earth from a GEO satellite for example. Often, a
GEO satellite is designed to provide TV broadcast, for example, to a continent, a
geographical region, a large country, or so. To achieve this, one or more horn antennas
are used.
Reflector Antennas: This type is used to provide highly directed transmission/reception
as when communicating to a spot on earth in the case of transmission/reception from an
Earth station.
Array Antennas: This type is usually used in LEO communication satellites, which are
non-stationary with respect to Earth, to allow the satellites to track multiple users
simultaneously.