ECTI developed a 3-day course on Satellite Communications. The purpose of this course is to enable the students to develop a systems view of satellite communications (SATCOM), along with a firm understanding of satellite system architecture design and performance analysis. The focus is communications satellites, but much of the content is applicable to satellites having other primary missions as well.
Upon completion of this course, the student will:
Develop an intuition regarding the trades between SATCOM system design and achievable performance and recent trends in SATCOM system design
Be able to answer questions such as “What is the achievable data rate for a given satellite system design and what would it take to improve its performance?” or “What are the drivers in designing a satellite system?” or “How do different orbits impact performance?”
Feel comfortable discussing technical SATCOM concepts with your customers and colleagues
Students will perform calculations to develop an understanding of digital communication system concepts including modulation, coding, interleaving, RF systems, and propagation channels. These concepts are then integrated to conduct a satellite communications link budget analysis, enabling students to quantify achievable data rates and evaluate options to improve performance. Selected additional topics are also discussed including orbital mechanics, multiple access techniques, spread spectrum, and jamming.