Flexible payload and method of reconfiguring flexible payload in case of interference

• US 9,634,756 B2
• Filed: 03/13/2015
• Issued: 04/25/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Eutelsat, SA (Eutelsat Communications SA)
• Original Assignee: Eutelsat, SA (Eutelsat Communications SA)
• Inventors: Amos, Sonya, Fenech, Hector
• Primary Examiner(s): Kamara, Mohamed
• Application Number:
  US14/656,843
• Publication Number:
  US 20150263803A1
• Time in Patent Office: 774 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18519 Operations control, administration or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18582 Arrangements for data linking, i.e. for data framing, for error recovery, for multiple access
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0044 allocation of payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/26 Cell enhancers or enhancement, e.g. for tunnels, building shadow
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0473 the resource being transmission power
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/541 using the level of interference

Abstract

A flexible payload for a satellite includes a main uplink antenna device configured to receive at least a main uplink signal over a main coverage area; a reconfigurable uplink antenna device configured to receive a complementary uplink signal over a complementary coverage area; a command device configured to define the complementary coverage area of the reconfigurable uplink antenna device, and an agile converting device configured to generate a spectral hole in the bandwidth of the main uplink signal.

Claims

1. A flexible payload of a satellite comprising:

a main uplink antenna device configured to receive at least a main uplink signal over a main coverage area;

a reconfigurable uplink antenna device configured to receive a complementary uplink signal over a complementary coverage area;

a command device configured to define the complementary coverage area of the reconfigurable uplink antenna device so that the complementary coverage area corresponds to the main coverage area without an interfered coverage area; and

an agile converting device configured to generate a spectral hole in the bandwidth of the main uplink signal.

2. The flexible payload according to claim 1, wherein the agile converting device comprises:

a frequency divider configured to separate the main uplink signal in at least two sub-bands;

a downconverter adapted to convert the frequency of all signals received by the uplink antenna device to a common intermediate frequency, and

a reconfigurable filter configured to adjust a centre frequency and bandwidth of each sub-band.

3. The flexible payload according to claim 1, further comprising:

at least two downlink antenna devices;

a downlink switch matrix configured to connect any pair of satellite uplink and downlink antenna devices.

4. The flexible payload according to claim 3, further comprising a flexible amplifier configured to allocate power to the different downlink antenna devices.

5. The flexible payload according to claim 1, wherein the reconfigurable uplink antenna device comprises a reconfigurable phased array antenna.

6. A method of reconfiguring a flexible payload of a satellite in case of interference, the interference having an interference frequency over an interfered coverage area, the method comprising:

receiving a main uplink signal over a main coverage area, the main uplink signal having a bandwidth of frequency;

forming a notch signal by generating a spectral hole in the bandwidth of the main uplink signal, the spectral hole being generated to include the interference frequency;

defining a complementary coverage area of a reconfigurable uplink antenna device so that the complementary coverage area corresponds to the main coverage area without the interfered coverage area;

receiving a complementary uplink signal with the reconfigurable uplink antenna device over the complementary coverage area; and

forming a downlink signal based on the notch signal and on the complementary uplink signal.

7. The method of reconfiguring a flexible payload according to claim 6, wherein forming the notch signal comprises:

dividing the bandwidth of the main uplink signal into at least two sub-bands;

adjusting a centre frequency and bandwidth of each sub-band in order to have the interference frequency excluded of each sub-band.

8. The method of reconfiguring a flexible payload according to claim 6, wherein the operation of forming the downlink signal comprises combining the notch signal and the complementary uplink signal and converting frequencies of the notch signal and of the complementary uplink signal to a common intermediate frequency.

9. The method of reconfiguring a flexible payload according to claim 6, wherein the complementary uplink signal is filtered in order to present a bandwidth corresponding to the spectral hole generated in the bandwidth of the main uplink signal of the main uplink signal.