Ast & Science, LLC

Emc Satcom Technologies LLC

Global Eagle Entertainment Inc.

Other

Hybrid Audio LLC

Sriram Jayasimha

Abel Avellan

Jyothendar Paladugula

Huiwen Yao

Sergio Godoy

Federico Fawzi

Praveen K Tangutoori

Michael A Tzannes

Peter N Heller

John P Stautner

Zhi Zhong Yu

William R Morrell

Christos Kasparis

Peter King

David Wheeler

Kovelapudi Prasad

Federico P Fawzi

A high throughput fractionated satellite (HTFS) system and method where the functional capabilities of a conventional monolithic spacecraft are distributed across many small or very small satellites and a central command and relay satellite, the satellites are separated and flight in carefully design formations that allows the creation of very large aperture or apertures in space drastically reducing cost and weight and enabling high throughput capabilities by spatially reuse spectrum.

System and method for high throughput fractionated satellites (HTFS) for direct connectivity to and from end user devices and terminals using flight formations of small or very small satellites

A satellite communication system includes a phased antenna array having a field of view (FoV) and configured to communicate with a plurality of cells in the FoV via a plurality of beams. Each of the plurality of beams is associated with one of the plurality of cells. A phased antenna array is configured to apply adaptive taper selection, based on both the satellite position (in relation to a satellite service beam) and its surrounding interference scenario.

Adaptive taper selection for beamforming

OFDM-BPSK symbol sequences are used for mutual-coupling based phase array calibration. Such substitution allows phase to be estimated more accurately using a given estimation duration without compromising other estimates' (amplitude and group delay) accuracies.

Mutual coupling based calibration with OFDM signals

A ground station processes downlink signals received from respective satellites. The ground station has a plurality of signal conditioning devices each receiving a respective one of the downlink signals and providing a conditioned downlink signal. A plurality of Doppler and/or Delay compensator devices each receive a respective conditioned downlink signal from a respective one of the plurality of signal conditioning devices. The compensator devices conduct Doppler and/or Delay compensation on the received conditioned downlink signal, and provide a compensated downlink signal output. A selector or diversity combiner receives the compensated downlink signal from each of the plurality of Doppler and/or Delay compensators. The selector or diversity combiner selects one of the received compensated downlink signals based on received signal strength of each received compensated downlink signal to provide a selected downlink signal, or diversity combines all of the received compensated downlink signals to provide a diversity combined signal. The selector or diversity combiner provides the selected downlink signal or the diversity combined signal to an eNodeB.

Selection, diversity combining or satellite MIMO to mitigate scintillation and/or near-terrestrial multipath to user devices

A base station for communication with a terminal station having a plurality of terminal station antennas. The base station has a plurality of directional antennas, each of the plurality of directional antennas in communication with satellites in view. The base station also has a processing device (e.g., eNodeB) to transmit each of the multiple base-station antenna signals via each of the plurality of directional antennas to satellites and/or the beams of the same satellite seen by the terminal station for retransmission to the plurality of terminal station antennas.

Satellite MIMO system

An antenna array includes an antenna assembly. The antenna assembly includes a plurality of elements. The antenna assembly is configured to measure a reference combined parameter of a reference element of the plurality of elements, measure a first combined parameter of the reference element and a first neighbor element of the plurality of elements and being adjacent or diagonal with respect to the reference element, calculate a differential parameter according to the first combined parameter and the reference combined parameter, and adjust a parameter of the first neighbor element according to the differential parameter. The parameter of first neighbor element is a phase or a amplitude of first neighbor element. The first combined parameter includes a coupling contribution of the first neighbor element and the reference element, and contributions from a path of the first element and a path of the reference element.

Mutual coupling based calibration

A high throughput satellite communication system and method of satellite communication that provide loopback capability and increased throughput is disclosed. The satellite communication system and method of satellite communication utilize pre-distortion based on remotely estimated characteristics of a satellite transponder's power amplifier (PA). The pre-distortion is applied to the hub modulator's constellation.

Loopback satellite transponder pre-distorter

A return channel system for ultra-small aperture terminals has a spreader that receives an input signal and outputs a spread spectrum signal having multiple replicated signals with a lower power than the input signal. A de-spreader includes a de-multiplexer that receives the spread spectrum signal via satellite. The de-multiplexer separates the spread spectrum signal into a first channel having a first signal and a second channel having a second signal. The de-spreader also has an offset compensation circuit having a phase estimator configured to estimate a phase offset between a phase of the first signal and a phase of the second signal. And a phase adjustor that receives the second signal and adjusts the phase of the second signal to align with the phase of the first signal to provide a phase-adjusted second signal. A summer combines the first signal with the phase-adjusted second signal to provide a composite signal.

Multi-channel spread spectrum return channel for ultra small aperture terminals (USATS)

At least two antennas are used for make-before-break communications over non-geostationary satellites. An SHDC device provides physical layer seamless hand-off and obtain diversity signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain. When additional antennas are available for standby or other reasons, it may be beneficial for a number of satellite antennas to collectively utilize additional SHDC devices to achieve higher diversity SNR gains under normal operational considerations. The asymptotic SNR gains are those obtained when receiver antenna noise dominates transponder and sky noises. According to exemplary embodiment of the present invention, N satellite antennas may collectively utilize N&#x2212;1 SHDC devices. For example, 3 satellite antennas may collectively utilize 2 SHDC devices.

Physical layer hand-off and diversity combining in non-geostationary satellite constellation

A system and method for performing automatic uplink power control (AUPC), using interference cancellation, to compensate for signal attenuation in a satellite communication system in which uplink path attenuation, forward channel attenuation, or both are estimated at a hub station without requiring signal quality reports from a remote station, and without requiring a satellite beacon. Estimates of uplink path attenuation or forward channel attenuation are used by the hub station to control the output power of a transmitted signal, thereby compensating for the estimated attenuation.

Automatic uplink power control in interference cancellation based spectral reuse

A system and method of reducing VSAT apertures via satellite MIMO is disclosed. The system and method comprise a first hub antenna configured to receive a first return signal from and to transmit a first forward signal to a first adjacent satellite, a second hub antenna configured to receive a second return signal from and to transmit a second forward signal to a second adjacent satellite, and a hub station configured to determine time delay and frequency shift between the first return signal and the second return signal after they are received by the first hub antenna and the second hub antenna, and to apply the determined time delay and frequency shift to one of the first forward signal and the second forward signal prior to transmitting them so the first forward signal and the second forward signal are time- and frequency-aligned when received at the remote ground terminal via the first adjacent satellite and the second adjacent satellite, wherein the first return signal and the second return signal are transmitted from the remote ground terminal to the first hub antenna and the second hub antenna via the first adjacent satellite and the second adjacent satellite. Similar time- and frequency-aligning can be achieved at the remote ground terminal using polarized signals transmitted from the remote ground terminal.

System and method for reducing VSAT apertures via satellite MIMO

A system for enabling use of ultra-small aperture terminals in satellite communications is provided. The system comprises a transmitter configured to receive an input signal having information, a bandwidth, and an amplitude, replicate the input signal into two or more replications of the input signal, convert each of the two or more replications to have a frequency tuned to two or more corresponding satellite transponders while maintaining the bandwidth and all the information of the input signal, and combine the two or more replications into a single uplink signal. A transmit antenna is configured to transmit the uplink signal to the two or more satellite transponders.

Growing community of inventors

Bengaluru, India

Sriram Jayasimha