LOW COST and PORTABLE SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO GROUND STATION Town
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LOW COST AND PORTABLE SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO GROUND STATION Town Barbara Apili Ojur Cape of SpaceLab, Department of Electrical Engineering University This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Space Studies February 2019 SL19-06M The copyright of this thesis vests inTown the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes Capeonly. of Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University DECLARATION I know the meaning of plagiarism and declare that all the work in the document, save for that which is properly acknowledged, is my own. It has not been previously submitted, in part or whole, to any university of institution for any degree, diploma, or other qualification. This thesis/dissertation has been submitted to the Turnitin module (or equivalent similarity and originality checking software) and I confirm that my supervisor has seen my report and any concerns revealed by such have been resolved with my supervisor. Signed______________________________________________________________ Date_______________________________________________________________2019/02/09 Barbara Apili Ojur, BSc Electrical and Computer Engineering Cape Town ABSTRACT Small satellites are being launched by a multitude of private and public organizations around the world. They are innately cheaper than their large counterparts. This attribute, and additional ones, such as their easy-to-assemble nature and the convenience of using commercially available off-the-shelf parts to build them has enhanced their popularity. Now that getting into space has become more accessible there is an influx of information available from small satellites, however the information is not being utilized too efficiently on Earth. One reason as to why this is evident is because traditional ground stations, which are largely hardware dependent, are expensive to develop. However, with the introduction of Software Defined Radios (SDRs) many of the operations formerly done using hardware can now be implemented in software. Using a SDR can substantially reduce the cost of a traditionally hardware-based ground station. A number of universities and other organizations have or are developing SDR ground stations to communicate with satellites in different orbits. The ability to receive or transmit signals is important because it displays the capability to develop and operate satellites to various stakeholders. This dissertation attempted to enhance the movement towards satellite communication using SDR technology by developing a low cost, portable, easy to assemble and extendable ground station at the University of Cape Town in order to make contact with one or more small satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), to encourage data usage, national and international collaboration and education. The ground station was constructed and tested based on its objectives, requirements and constraints. The commissioning tests were conducted in the SpaceLab at the University of Cape Town. The ground station was able to make contact with two small satellites in LEO successfully. Packets were received from two satellites that clearly stated who they were. The information contained in the packets was decoded into ASCII text and Hex code. They were compared with other successful amateur ground station results from all over the world to verify their authenticity. The main conclusion was that the SDR ground station was able to make contact with small satellites in LEO operating in the 70-cm band. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dedicated to God and my family. CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 2 1.1 MISSION STATEMENT ......................................................................................... 2 1.2 SATELLITES AND GROUND STATIONS ................................................................. 3 1.2.1 Satellite Orbits .............................................................................................. 3 1.2.2 Radio Communications with Satellites ......................................................... 7 1.2.3 Small Satellites ............................................................................................ 13 1.2.4 Small Satellite Ground Stations .................................................................. 14 1.3 SMALL SATELLITE MISSIONS ........................................................................... 16 1.3.1 KiboCUBE Program ................................................................................... 16 1.3.2 First Kenya University Nano Satellite-Precursor Flight ............................ 18 1.4 COMMUNICATIONS ........................................................................................... 20 1.4.1 Satellite to Earth Communication ............................................................... 20 1.4.2 Satellite-to-Earth Communication Factors ................................................. 23 1.5 DISSERTATION STRUCTURE .............................................................................. 25 2 SOFTWARE-DEFINED RADIO GROUND STATIONS ................................ 26 2.1 SIGNAL ACQUISITION ....................................................................................... 26 2.1.1 Antenna ....................................................................................................... 26 2.1.2 Rotator ........................................................................................................ 30 2.2 SIGNAL PROCESSING ........................................................................................ 32 2.2.1 Low Noise Amplifier.................................................................................... 33 2.2.2 SDR and Computers .................................................................................... 33 3 MISSION OBJECTIVES, REQUIREMENTS AND CONSTRAINTS .......... 36 3.1 QUALITATIVE MISSION OBJECTIVES ................................................................ 36 3.2 QUANTITATIVE MISSION REQUIREMENTS AND CONSTRAINTS................................ 37 4 SYSTEM DESIGN ................................................................................................ 40 4.1 SYSTEM DESIGN ............................................................................................... 40 5 DETAILED DESIGN, PARTS SELECTION AND ASSEMBLY ................... 50 5.1 IDENTIFICATION OF SUITABLE COTS COMPONENTS ......................................... 50 5.2 DETAILED STRUCTURAL DESIGN ..................................................................... 58 5.3 PARTS ACQUISITION FOR ANTENNA AND ROTATOR SUPPORT STRUCTURE ...... 66 5.4 SOFTWARE ....................................................................................................... 67 5.4.1 SDR# ........................................................................................................... 67 5.4.2 SatPC32 ...................................................................................................... 68 5.4.3 Arduino and Shield Rotator Software ......................................................... 69 5.4.4 N2YO.COM ................................................................................................. 69 5.4.5 HS-Sound modem ........................................................................................ 71 5.4.6 AGW Online Kiss and Kiss-Dump .............................................................. 71 5.4.7 Decoders ..................................................................................................... 73 5.5 ASSEMBLY, INTEGRATION AND TESTING ......................................................... 73 5.5.1 Base, Mast and Crossbar ............................................................................ 73 5.5.2 Azimuth, Elevation rotators and controller connected ............................... 75 5.5.3 Mast and rotator – Clamping together with a metal clamp ........................ 77 5.5.4 Antenna ....................................................................................................... 78 5.5.5 SDR-Phasing Connection ........................................................................... 80 5.5.6 Arduino and shield – connecting ................................................................ 81 5.5.7 LCD circuit – building the circuit on Vero board ...................................... 82 5.5.8 Rotator to Arduino – soldering and connecting.......................................... 84 6 COMMISSIONING TESTS AND RESULTS .................................................... 88 iv 6.1 SDR GROUND STATION OPERATION FLOW ...................................................... 88 6.2 TEST ENVIRONMENT ........................................................................................ 90 6.3 TESTS AND RESULTS ........................................................................................ 91 6.3.1 Test 1: SK-CUBE ........................................................................................ 92 6.3.2 Test 2: CSSWE7 .......................................................................................... 94 6.3.3 Test 3: RAX-1 .............................................................................................. 96 7 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................