On the use of a standard backplane in a modular satellite communications terminal architecture

As the future of modular satellite communication terminals heads toward commercial standards, the use of a common or standard backplane drives the overall architecture to a more useable and reusable reference model. This paper delves into a reference architecturepsilas backplane formation from multiple perspectives. This includes suggested hardware and software module features that facilitate re-usability as well as interoperability, and an open system approach enabling ease in adding capabilities. Other areas of interest examined include items such as the overall data throughput and any dependencies incurred from the architectures interrelationships. Overall, the paper covers a general topical discussion of the standard backplane and related architectural artifacts. The paper offers some concluding remarks including suggested topics for further study.