A Bidirectional link Budget Simulator for VHTS System Design Under Fading Constraints

Satellite communications services are increasingly in need of bandwidth to support the growth of capacityhungry applications. In response, higher operating frequency bands are being deployed or explored to meet this demand. However, these frequencies make the carriers more susceptible to fading and in particular to heavy rain events that can cause major outages on the feeder side. To address these critical issues, Fade Mitigation Techniques (FMT) should be implemented, but require an extensive parameter tuning and design process to be optimized in system design. Therefore, an extensive simulation and calibration campaign needs to be performed before the system is deployed. In this paper, we propose a simulator that implements a large variety of these techniques. Indeed, our Python library, BiLiDget (Bidirectional Link BuDget), implements UpLink Power Control (ULPC), Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM), and also Smart Gateway Diversity (SGD) in a fullyreconfigurable manner, allowing a complete variation of the design parameters. Figure 1Gateways (GWS) with a 7+2 network SGD topology. Figure 2Standard simulation of a multibeam system by BiLiDget with 200 beams and users. 2. Introduction With the rise of eservices and dematerialization, exacerbated by the COVID19 crisis, users are increasingly demanding Internet and unicasting connectivity anytime and anywhere. Digital networks are expected to be highly reliable, affordable and quickly deployable despite greedycapacity applications.