A satellite modem or satmodem is a modem used to establish data transfers using a communications satellite as a relay. A satellite modem's main function is to transform an input bitstream to a radio signal and vice versa.
There are some devices that include only a demodulator (and no modulator, thus only allowing data to be downloaded by satellite) that are also referred to as "satellite modems." These devices are used in satellite Internet access (in this case uploaded data is transferred through a conventional PSTN modem or an ADSL modem).
Satellite link
A satellite modem is not the only device needed to establish a communication channel. Other equipment that is essential for creating a satellite link include satellite antennas and frequency converters.
Data to be transmitted are transferred to a modem from data terminal equipment (e.g. a computer). The modem usually has intermediate frequency (IF) output (that is, 50-200 MHz), however, sometimes the signal is modulated directly to L band. In most cases, frequency has to be converted using an upconverter before amplification and transmission.
A modulated signal is a sequence of symbols, pieces of data represented by a corresponding signal state, e.g. a bit or a few bits, depending upon the modulation scheme being used. Recovering a symbol clock (making a local symbol clock generator synchronous with the remote one) is one of the most important tasks of a demodulator.
Similarly, a signal received from a satellite is firstly downconverted (this is done by a Low-noise block converter - LNB), then demodulated by a modem, and at last handled by data terminal equipment. The LNB is usually powered by the modem through the signal cable with 13 or 18 V DC.
The main functions of a satellite modem are modulation and demodulation. Satellite communication standards also define error correction codes and framing formats.
Popular modulation types being used for satellite communications:
Binary phase-shift keying (BPSK);
Quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK);
Offset quadrature phase-shift keying (OQPSK);
8PSK;
Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), especially 16QAM.
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
This course applies concepts from chemical kinetics and mass and energy balances to address chemical reaction engineering problems, with a focus on industrial applications. Students develop the abilit
Explores isothermal reactor design, including stoichiometry, rate laws, and MATLAB simulations, highlighting the tradeoff between reactivity and pressure drop.
A very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) is a two-way satellite ground station with a dish antenna that is smaller than 3.8 meters. The majority of VSAT antennas range from 75 cm to 1.2 m. Bit rates, in most cases, range from 4 kbit/s up to 16 Mbit/s. VSATs access satellites in geosynchronous orbit or geostationary orbit to relay data from small remote Earth stations (terminals) to other terminals (in mesh topology) or master Earth station "hubs" (in star topology). VSATs are used to transmit narrowband data (e.
Satellite Internet access or Satellite Broadband is Internet access provided through communication satellites. Modern consumer grade satellite Internet service is typically provided to individual users through geostationary satellites that can offer relatively high data speeds, with newer satellites using to achieve downstream data speeds up to 506 Mbit/s. In addition, new satellite internet constellations are being developed in low-earth orbit to enable low-latency internet access from space.
The joint design of input constellation and low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes to approach the symmetric capacity of the two-user Gaussian multiple access channel is studied. More specifically, multilevel coding is employed at each user to construct a h ...