These demonstrations were part of the final presentation of the SCCN project given by Volker Jarsch, Christian Hauff, and Markus Reiss of NDSatcom. The objective of this project has been to implement a satellite network, which is ready at all times to immediately respond to the requirements of a crisis or failure of terrestrial connections and is economically sustainable. The resulting network can be shared among different classes of users, which can take traffic priority as they start accessing the satellite channel.
Crisis management and disaster management are receiving increasing attention by responsible organisations in many countries. A communications network via satellite is seen as an excellent backup and fill-in option. It is highly flexible, deployable, performing and reliable.
With this objective, a number of specific hardware and software features have been successfully developed on NDSatcom proprietary SkyWAN® 5000 and 7000 systems, including network load balancing, dynamic network extension, a SkyRAYLight mobile antenna system, an antenna control Unit (ACU) implementing an improved antenna pointing algorithm.
ND SatCom SkyWAN® is a fully-meshed VSAT system for establishing wide area corporate networks while providing IP, Frame Relay, and voice connectivity. SkyWAN® provides instant bandwidth-on-demand through its fully dynamic bandwidth allocation scheme. Space segment resources are automatically assigned to stations requiring transmission capacity as and when they need it, while freeing up resources for on-demand use by other stations in the network. SkyWAN® was also developed through the ESA ARTES program.
“Crisis managmenent users request complete pointing within a five minute maximum” explained Mr. Jarsch. “This time includes not only the automatic pointing of the antenna, but also the fine adjustment and the optimization of the polarization. We have now created a new algorithm for polarization optimization that achieves the goal of five minutes.”
The new 'SkyRAYlight' mobile antenna system can be mounted in a few minutes on any car, even a passenger car, without tools and wthout modifications of the car, just like a bicycle carrier. It uses the new antenna pointing system and the SkyWAN modem. In cooperation with partners, ND SatCom can now offer solutions for mobile command centres for task forces, or mobile video contribution solutions for journalists
A pilot network has been implemented and operated for several months using the ESA Telecom satellite capacity around a typical user configuration which has supported a number of trials and events including operational support during the G8 event in Germany. The pilot has widely demonstrated the concept of how users of different domains may share the same always-on satellite network, relying on traffic priority to handle emergency communications.
The demonstration of the SCCN at ESTEC concentrated on the items developed in the project and showed how quickly and easily a communications network can be established from the crisis area to the operations centre via satellite through use of the SkyRAYLight auto pointing antenna system. The vehicles and terminals used in the demo included a media contribution vehicle, an emergency command vehicle and a prototype of the “Pack-and-go” terminal.
“With the help of the ESA ARTES programme, we were able to build on our existing SkyWAN® systems to offer a better solution to potential users in crisis situations,” said Mr. Jarsch.
"The concept of an always-on satellite network suitable to provide flexible access to different class of users is paving the way to the solution to the economical sustainability for emergency management services, where the satellite capacity is mostly under utilised but accounted for full occupancy. The improved SkyWAN® system emerging from this ARTES project is capable to provide a cost effective solution to the problem” said Stefano Badessi, ESA Technical Officer of the SCCN ARTES project.
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