Study on photonic and digital hybrid flexible satellite payload

We proposed and demonstrated a novel photonic and digital hybrid flexible satellite payload with resources sharing for multi-channel communication payloads at L, S, Ku and Ka band. The system uses microwave photonic up/down conversion to realize receive different band microwave signals and convert to fixed IF frequency. We further show that the photonic and digital hybrid switching is used compared to the conventional “bent pipe” repeater, which can realize much finer granularity signal switching. We have verified the system can offer some compelling advantages on frequency plan flexibility and cross-connection fine-granularity, with performance superior to existing microwave systems.