Cost effective emulation of geostationary satellite channels by means of software-defined radio

Abstract

This contribution is about the use of software-defined radio (SDR) for channel emulation. Based on NI USRP devices and the LabVIEW programming environment, we devised an affordable RF channel emulator for geostationary satellite transmission. It is able to process 2 × 1.6 MBaud in realtime while adding thermal noise, phase noise and propagation delay according to the system which is modelled. This extensible tool is valuable for supporting teaching activities and it also serves as a convenient test bench when devising new protocols and services that are meant to run over satellite links.