Communication Link Budget Estimation between Ground IoT Terminal and Cubesat 3U ’s SDR

Abstract

This paper reports the study and analysis of the link budget for uplink and downlink communication between the 3U university nano-satellite using Software-defined radio (SDR) and the ground IoT terminals. The aim of such study is to ensure that the playload of the 3U-CubeSat receives and processes correctly data sent by ground IoT terminals. The calculation of the link budget allows the determination of attenuation parameters such as atmospheric losses, free space path losses, antenna polarization losses. The analysis of the link budget enables finding the adequate elevation angle to ensure that the communication link and synchronization can be performed correctly. For this purpose, the link margin for three different elevation angles is calculated. It has been shown that 30° elevation angle is the optimal elevation for a favorable communication link between the 3U university nano-satellite and the ground IoT terminals.The original idea in this work is to provide a detailed overview of the architecture communication between 3U cubesat and ground IoT terminal and to analyze the link budget requirements to successfully establish this communication.