A Study of an Onboard Switch for Mobile Satellite Communications

An onboard switch enables satellite communications systems with a multibeam structure to operate more efficiently. A study of an onboard baseband switch for mobile satellite communication network has been conducted. In this baseband switch, field programmable gate arrays are used for signal processing, and the OpenFlow protocol is applied as the switch control. A breadboard model of an onboard switch has been developed for evaluating its performance. The performance test results for the breadboard model showed that the performance of the onboard switch is sufficient to meet its design. The adoption of field programmable gate arrays and the OpenFlow protocol for the onboard switch make it possible to construct a highly flexible onboard system.