User terminal wideband modem for very high throughput satellites

The continuous increase of the demand for high data rate satellite services has triggered the development of new high-end satellite modems, which are capable of supporting a bandwidth of up to 500 MHz. For commercial application, the downlink from low Earth orbit (LEO) sensors and observation satellites is of a special interest. Such satellites should be capable of recording gigabytes of data and transferring it to the ground stations within a few minutes since the satellite is only visible for a short time at such low altitudes. This implies a very fast and reliable information processing at the terminal. For this, it would be beneficial to utilize the entire 1500 MHz spectrum of the extended Ka-band. In this context, the design of the modem architecture is very challenging. This problem is addressed in this chapter for the first time. We develop a new terminal modem architecture, which is expected to support a data rate in the range between 25 Msps and 1400 Msps. Through this, the receiver can easily adapt to changes in the data rate according to the traffic requirements. Furthermore, a simulator tool is developed, which is used for a numerical performance evaluation of the individual components and the whole system.