Multi-mode DVB-RCS satellite terminal with software defined radio

Abstract

A multi-mode radio communication terminal is a tunable terminal for passing and/or receiving bands in at least two radio communication systems. In the last few years many research resources have been invested in the study of this new type of terminal. In our study, we intend that a multi-mode terminal is a terminal capable of communicating both with a Bent-Pipe satellite and with an On-Board Processor satellite. In the literature different technologies are presented and they can be used to realize the multi-mode capability of a terminal, but, the most suitable technology is the Software Defined Radio (SDR). The SDR is a set of Hardware and Software technologies that allow one to obtain reconflgurable architectures for network and wireless terminals. The goal of our work is to plan a satellite system based on Digital Video Broadcast with the Return Channel Satellite (DVB-RCS) standard in which the Return Channel Satellite Terminals (RCSTs) are able to adapt to the channel state, configuring the transmission chain via software, respecting a certain Quality of Service (QoS) constraint on the Packet Error Rate (PER). © 2007 IEEE.