Design challenges of a highly integrated SDR platform for multiband spacecraft applications in radiation environments

Abstract

Software-Defined Radios (SDR) are already widely-used and often implemented in terrestrial Radio Frequency (RF) and wireless applications. Even the very conservative and slow changing space industry has identified the benefits of reconfigurable radio systems and uses SDRs on satellites and space vehicles. Nevertheless, those systems are mostly inapplicable for lower- and mid-class mission, or are often limited in performance, reliability and are only available for a specific frequency band. This paper presents the approach for a reliable and highly integrated Generic Software Defined-Radio (GSDR) platform design, using state-of-the-art RF transceiver devices to provide multi-band applications on spacecraft. Design challenges under radiation environments for this GSDR platform are discussed and results of a pre-evolution test under selected radiation condition on a prototype are presented.