TRANSPONDERS: Effectiveness of Propagation Impairments Mitigation Techniques at Q/V Band

Q/V band frequencies are expected to play a key role in enabling challenging and unproven broadband communications missions for a wide range of applications. In the perspective to exploit these frequencies, several satellite missions have been proposed to explore the physics of the satellite channel. The strategic importance of probing higher and higher frequencies has been recognized by the Italian Space Agency through the ITALSAT mission that up to date has been the major contributor to the advancement of the Q/V band propagation knowledge. In 2004 ASI funded a feasibility study (phase A study), called TRANSPONDERS, Italian acronym for "research, analysis and study of Q/V payloads for telecommunications", whose main objectives were the improvement of the knowledge of propagation impairments at Q/V band and the evaluation of the effectiveness of PIMTs (Propagation Impairment Mitigation Techniques) in very high frequency band operation. In this paper, after an overview of the potential applications in Q/V band and the top level mission architecture relative to the selected applicative mission at these frequencies, the applicability of three selected PIMTs, such as site diversity, power control and Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM), in a Q/V band scenario is discussed and main challenges and key issues are identified.