X-BAND SOFTWARE-DEFINED RADIO FOR CUBESAT APPLICATIONS

Software-defined radios (SDRs) are used in many communications applications and offer flexibility in designing a communication network by offering rapid configuration changes after the radio is already produced. This is of interest in the small satellite industry, where small, lightweight, low-cost, and programmable radios will be needed for a wide array of upcoming missions of increasing complexity. Previous Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) research has produced a C-band SDR payload in a 1U CubeSat form factor. The X-band of the radio frequency spectrum offers more bandwidth, and opens the possibility of higher data rate transmissions. The objective for this project was to build an X-band SDR that can be used in future NPS research and flown on multiple platforms, including high altitude balloons, high altitude rockets, and CubeSats. This project built on previous C-band SDR research by converting the transmissions to X-band, expanding the over-air software protocol, implementing a new waveform, increasing the over-air data rate, and assessing the overall performance of the system.
DoD Space
http://archive.org/details/xbandsoftwaredef1094563431
Outstanding Thesis
Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.