Toward High Data Rate CubeSat Telecommunication

Abstract

This thesis contains the analysis and design for high-performance digital telecommunication sub-systems for use in small low earth orbit satellites. Additional details are given concerning Dalhousie University’s first CubeSat, LORIS. To further high-performance satellite communications this paper provides analysis of the low earth orbital motion of the satellite and the effect on the channel capacity. It is found that the channel capacity is time varying and to utilize this resource fully a dynamic and adaptive modulation coding scheme must be employed. Additionally, several designs for CubeSat S-band rectangular patch antenna arrays are presented and evaluated. It is found that polarization loss can be mitigated by 90% by using a sequentially rotated feed network to achieve polarization diversity. Various other topics are covered which provide a practical look into CubeSat design considerations and background on radio system design.