Delay calibration system for a two way satellite time & frequency transfer station

Author

Mubarak, Faisal ; Dierikx, E.

Author_Institution

VSL, Delft, Netherlands

fYear

2012

fDate

23-27 April 2012

Firstpage

469

Lastpage

476

Abstract

A completely automated system has been designed to calibrate path delays in a two way satellite time and frequency transfer (TWSTFT) ground station. The heart of this delay calibration system is a dual bidirectional up/down converter that converts the modulated pseudo random noise (PRN) code from 70 MHz to Ku-band (10 GHz to 14 GHz) frequencies and vice versa. Besides the usual transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) paths in the TWSTFT system, the dual bi-directional up/down converter offers two additional independent transmit and receive paths. These additional paths allow performing different independent loop delay measurements within the station from which the individual path delays can be calculated.

Keywords

artificial satellites; calibration; delays; frequency measurement; microwave measurement; microwave receivers; modulation coding; pseudonoise codes; random codes; random noise; satellite ground stations; time measurement; Ku-band; PRN; TWSTFT ground station; automated system; delay calibration system; dual bidirectional up-down converter; frequency 10 GHz to 14 GHz; frequency 70 MHz; independent loop delay measurement; modulated pseudorandom noise code converter; receiver path; transmitter path; two way satellite time-frequency transfer station;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

European Frequency and Time Forum (EFTF), 2012

Conference_Location

Gothenburg

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-1924-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EFTF.2012.6502427

Filename

6502427