Advanced VSAT Monitoring

Offentlig prosjektsammendrag

Satellite communications, television, and internet, is an important technological area, and Norway has a long and proud tradition in this industry. VSATs – very small aperture terminals – are modems connected to small satellite antennas with typically less than one meter diameter, for example either a household satellite dish or a moveable antenna on a ship. Satellites usually transmit different television broadcasts, multiple internet-over-satellite services, and other content simultaneously. Often, these services are delivered not by the satellite operator, but by specialized service providers. Since these providers usually use their own systems for communicating with satellites, satellite operators often only have limited information on network performance. This makes detecting and fixing errors a slow and expensive process. It also prevents operators from independently monitoring and verifying service agreement levels. Kratos Norway is a market leader in the field of VSAT monitoring, both for the commercial sector and for public regulators. We are now working on a new generation monitoring system that allows satellite operators to keep track of network activity on their own satellite, independent of the service providers. This is a big technical challenge. It is common to have many different types of VSAT systems active on any single satellite, all of which our monitoring system needs to support. This makes performance an important issue. While satellite communications systems traditionally use hardware specialized for every type of VSAT system, we need to develop pure CPU-based implementations to achieve the necessary flexibility to support this wide range of protocols. Lower launch costs, small-sat architectures, and innovative new space ventures are poised to provide a major boost to the satellite communications market. For Kratos Norway, this project will provide a strength basis for future growth and competitiveness in a strong international market.