Alphasat experiment at Aveiro

The earth-satellite propagation in Ka-band and above is severely compromised by tropospheric phenomena such as rainfall, clouds and variations of the atmosphere refractive index. Commercial exploration of these bands requires the use of mitigation techniques of propagation conditions to become commercially competitive. Whatever the technique used, the characterization of the propagation channel requires proper modeling which have to be supported by long measurement campaigns. The paper describes the propagation campaign taking place in Aveiro with emphasis on the characteristics of the experiment with the beacon at 39.402 GHz in the Alphasat satellite, including the hardware solutions, beacon detection, data acquisition and the antenna pointing system. The beacon detection system with two distinct approaches, based on digital signal processing techniques, are discussed and compared. Some comparative preliminary results are presented.