Preliminary design of communication and power subsystem for micro-satellite with maritime surveillance mission

Abstract

Vast maritime territory in Indonesia needs satellite technology to prevent illegal activities such as illegal fishing, fuel dumping, illegal transhipment, and trafficking/smuggling. Therefore, this research aims to design a satellite with mission for detecting illegal activities on Indonesian territorial water and ZEE. The satellite will have the capability to receive AIS signal from ships operating in Indonesian territory, and image signature for optical or radar sensor capture it by SAR. The concept of operation is that the satellite will receive/capture the ships information and send the real-time data while passing Indonesian region. Thereafter, the data received is then processed in ground segment to determine suspected ships. In this paper, the discussion focuses on the design of the satellite communication and power subsystem. In this work, LAPAN's micro-satellite design is selected as the base to determine and size components of the subsystem. Satellite communication link budget was calculated with three alternatives of antenna to determine which one has the best link performance. Afterwards, the power subsystem which consists of solar cell, as the main power generator, and battery units was designed. The result of the work is a preliminary satellite design of the subsystems, that satisfy the satellite mission requirements.