An Optimized Planning Tool for Microwave Terrestrial and Satellite Link Design

Eduardo Ferreira (), Pedro Sebastião, Francisco Cercas, Carlos Sá Costa and Américo Correia
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Eduardo Ferreira: Department of Political Science and Public Policy, ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal
Pedro Sebastião: Department of Political Science and Public Policy, ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal
Francisco Cercas: Department of Political Science and Public Policy, ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal
Carlos Sá Costa: Department of Political Science and Public Policy, ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal
Américo Correia: Department of Political Science and Public Policy, ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal

Future Internet, 2023, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: Today, the internet is fundamental to social inclusion. There are many people that live in remote areas, and the only way to supply internet services is through the use of microwave terrestrial and satellite systems. Thus, it is important to have efficient tools to design and optimize these systems. In this paper, a tool with the objective to shorten the time spent in the design process of microwave terrestrial and satellite point-to-point links is presented. This tool can be applied in academia by engineering students, providing an extended analysis of many sections of a link project design, as well as in professional practice by telecommunication engineering departments, presenting a concise step-by-step interactive design process. This tool uses three-dimensional world visualization, with the Cesium Application Programming Interface (API), to display and analyze site-specific characteristics that can disrupt the link’s quality of service (QoS). Using this visualization, two ray-tracing algorithms were developed to analyze signal diffraction and reflection mainly throughout terrestrial links. Using this new algorithm, an innovative process for signal diffraction and reflection calculations was created. Using updated standards provided by the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), the characteristics of the defined simulated links could be predicted, thus providing the user with the metrics of signal quality and system link budget.

Keywords: radio propagation; software planning tool; terrestrial microwave link; satellite microwave link (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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