S8825A Satellite and Aerospace Channel Emulation Toolset

Today’s complex communication systems are under development to meet the growing levels of broadband data in aerospace, satellite, and airborne applications. One of the main driving factors is converging the cellular and satellite networks and introducing the Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) in 5G. For 6G and beyond, the relevance of satellite links becomes essential in quantum communications. A failure in a communication link can lead to the loss of life-critical data, which is why aerospace, satellite, and airborne radio devices need to meet stringent reliability requirements. It is often challenging and expensive to virtually repair aerospace and satellite-type devices. Therefore, it is crucial to emulate the various phenomena that may affect a radio device in its real-world environment. This process is the only way to guarantee the reliability of the communication links and radio systems.

Keysight’s S8825A Satellite and Aerospace Channel Emulation Toolset provides the foundation for covering the most advanced test requirements. Testing in a controlled laboratory environment using a vast range of use case scenarios provides wireless communications systems’ developers a reliable and cost-effective solution for testing air-to-air and air-to-ground communication links. The laboratory setup allows air and space applications to experience actual environmental conditions, such as high Doppler, long delays, high dynamic range variations, power amplifier-related impairments, and phase noise. The S8825A Satellite and Aerospace Channel Emulation Toolset combines Keysight’s PROPSIM channel emulator with its Aerospace Channel Emulation engine (ACE) to test aerospace, satellite, and airborne radio systems in a laboratory environment. The advanced functionalities include the mixed-use of cellular links combined with long delay aerospace links, enabling the implementation of test scenarios for 5G NTN.