Implementing a Software-Defined Radio Ground Station for Satellite Communications
Open Access
- Area of Honors:
- Electrical Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr Sven Bilén, Thesis Supervisor
- Sven G Bilen, Thesis Supervisor
- John Douglas Mitchell, Honors Advisor
- Keywords:
- software-defined radio
- USRP
- GMSK
- GFSK
- modulation
- digital transmission
- satellite communication
- Si4432
- DSP
- GNU Radio
- Abstract:
- In this project a satellite communication system is designed using a software-defined radio. The system consists of the ground station implemented with a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) and the Si4432 hardware transceiver to be used on the satellite. Using a software-defined radio makes the communication system very flexible. A spectrally efficient digital modulation scheme is selected and a data packet structure is proposed. The system design considers peculiarities of both the USRP and the hardware Si4432 transceiver. Both the USRP and the Si4432 transceiver are then configured according to the proposed design. Test data is collected from the communication program, validated, and analyzed. Finally, possible improvements to the design are discussed and future opportunities explored.