What do you understand by a link budget of a satellite communication link? What type of information do you get from such an analysis?

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written 8.5 years ago by

teamques10 ★ 68k

Assuming that a telecommunication system is composed by a transmitter, a medium, and a receiver, the link budget is the accounting of all gain and losses in the power signal from the transmitter, passing through the medium, to the receiver.

So, the link budget analyses how much power is lost in the signal path, and can discriminate the loss power values of each cause of loss.

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To easily understand consider a signal travelling one-way. By just analysing the individual uplink path, the link budget will perform the power received by the satellite taking in account the amplification and the attenuation of the link. The link is composed by the transmitter (the Earth Station), the media (the atmosphere and free space), and the receiver (the Satellite).

Then, in the link budget calculation, we take into account the following losses and gains:

Gain of the transmitter and receiver amplifier
Attenuation in the atmosphere propagation
De-pointing losses
Polarization mismatch losses
Losses in transmitting and receiving equipment.

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