The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 30, 2003
Filed:
Oct. 11, 2000
James L. Wolcott, La Mirada, CA (US);
Alan E. Faris, Los Angeles, CA (US);
TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA (US);
Abstract
A telecommunications satellite channeliser ( ) is provided for mapping RF signals between feeder links ( ) and mobile link beams ( ) based on a predefined frequency plan (FIGS. and ). The mobile link beams ( ) define a coverage area ( ) of a satellite ( ). Each feeder link and mobile link beam comprises a plurality of feeder subbands and mobile subbands grouped to form feeder link channels ( ) and mobile link channels ( ). The channeliser ( ) includes at least one feeder lead carrying a feeder link signal ( ) associated with a ground station ( and ). A feeder link distribution network ( ) is connected to the feeder leads and maps RF signals in the feeder links ( ) onto a plurality of distribution leads as divided feeder signals. Channel multiplexers ( ) are connected to the distribution leads. Each channel multiplexer ( ) includes a set of band pass filters ( ), each of which passes RF signals in a subset of feeder subbands corresponding to a single feeder channel in order to map a mobile link channel ( ) and a feeder link channel ( ) onto one another based on a predefined frequency plan. The channeliser ( ) groups or multiplexes signals from a plurality of feeders into each beam. Fixed local oscillator up converters shift each composite mobile channel to a common band allocated to all beams. The frequency plan is defined such that beam handovers and ground station handovers may be performed without a need for at least one of switching, retuning and resynchronization of the telecommunications satellite and the mobile terminal.