SoC FPGA-based Beacon Emulator Platform for a Three-Axis Satellite Antenna

Abstract

Satellite tracking techniques are constantly being developed and improved so that stable communication links between satellites and terrestrial stations can be established. However, the implementation of such techniques can be frequently limited due to the complexity in reproducing satisfying test scenarios, manipulating and interpreting signals from those systems. Therefore, this paper proposes a method to manipulate the power signals of a three-phase induction motor (responsible for the movement of an antenna in a satellite tracking system) in order to apply them to a system able to emulate the behavior of the beacon signal (the reference signal for satellites). For that, the hardware project of a beacon and limit switches (LSs) emulators, motor rotation frequency meters, and rotation direction detectors will be presented. This was implemented in a System-on-Chip (SoC) FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) platform. The described system enables hardware-in-the-loop simulations and the efficient assessment of satellite tracking algorithms.