Emulation of transmission links for future S-UMTS constellations: the SUMO testbed

In order to evaluate the performance of future S-UMTS constellation, a satellite channel emulator is being developed within the ACTS-SUMO project. With the emulator and the control software developed by the Centre for Communication Systems Research, it is possible to emulate a wide range of satellite constellations (LEO, MEO and GEO) and propagation environments (open, urban, wooded...). Moreover, since the channel bandwidth is equal to 10 MHz, it is possible to use the emulator to evaluate the performance of different modulations, channel coding techniques and multiple access schemes.