UFXFX8-30-30 - Developing a SDR Based ADS-B for Future Commercial Space Travel - Engineering Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Introduction
Commercial space travel is becoming possible with the advancement in technologies. It is expected that commercial spaceflight operations will place a large impact on the National Airspace System (NAS) if not well manged. The transition of space vehicle to and from outer space will heavily challenge the capacity of the NAS. Therefore, to accommodate both conventional aviation and spaceflight operations, it is essential to develop the current technologies, and a common avionics Communication Navigation and Surveillance (CNS+A) infrastructure to coordinate both vehicles dramatically and simultaneously.

The Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) is a technology used in the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) program in the US to increase situational awareness. According to the FAA NextGen agenda, the ADS-B will be mandatory for all aircraft operating in the Class A airspace (18,000ft - 60,000ft) to be equipped with an ADS-B transponder as from January 2020 (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR), 2021). As the FAA is based in the US this law is only applied in the US NAS, nonetheless, Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) has plan to apply similar regulation in Europe. This shows that new vehicles navigating in the NAS will require to be equipped with an ADS-B on-board. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is a vehicle being used in several applications and there are high demands for low altitude UAVs. Most of these UAV are autonomous and requires a robust sense and avoid navigational system to navigate safely among other aerial vehicles. The ADS-B was used on-board the UAV to mitigate collision. For Spaceflight operations to take place in the NAS, the space vehicles will require to be equipped with a transponder. Therefore, use of ADS-B technology on the space vehicle can aid for commercial spaceflight operations However, the ADS-B needs to be enhanced in both system and technical aspect. This paper focuses on using Software Defined Radio (SDR) to enhance the system aspect of the ADS-B.
The study focuses on the spaceflight operations in the NAS and does not include military and governmental operations. The objective is to use SDR technology to design an ADS-B, centred at providing spacecraft to aircraft communication during exit and re-entry to and from space. The following is a breakdown of the different steps to successfully complete this project:

Perform a Feasibility Study for the ADS-B
Conduct a link budget to analyse signal performanceDesign ADS-B using SysMLSimulate the SDR in Simulink

Background
Current Space-Based Surveillance Technology
Since the Apollo mission in the 60s and 70s, spaceflight activity started to decline due to the cost involved per mission. Today most of the spaceflight mission is for government purposes which includes International Space Station (ISS) construction, satellite system deployment and military activities. Several private companies and government have begun developing commercial spaceflight vehicles after the first license for commercial launch activity which was issued in 1987 [2]. The number of commercial launches was found to exceed the number of military activities.
In the twenty-first century, space-based technologies and space vehicles design has led to more opportunities and demand for the commercial space travel market. However, without technological advancement, the current CNS infrastructure will not be able to satisfy the demand of spaceflight operations. Moreover, to accommodate spaceflight and aviation operation in the NAS, it is critical for the ATM to improve its safety, efficiency, and productivity. The FAA Next Generation Transportation System (NextGen) is bringing new developments in the NAS to increase its capacity and meet the demands of aviation operations. It is reasonable to use the NextGen technologies to aid for space travel. The amount of commercial launch has been restricted by economical and technical aspect. From a technical aspect, the FAA ATC cannot provide real time surveillance information and with the incoming and outgoing velocities of a space vehicle during launch and re-entry, will result in high position error. Generally, during a launch and re-entry of a space vehicle, a Temporary Flight Authorization (TFR) is issued as shown in figure 1 to restrict aircraft flying in these regions of the NAS. The TFR is issued for long period and is available to civilians.
After the TFA is issued, National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) and US Air Force (US AF) are responsible for managing and tracking of the space vehicle in the restricted area. Military operation is tracked by the AF while commercial operation to requires launch approval license by obtaining tracking services from NASA. Table 1 list the 3 major Space Surveillance Network (SSR) for NASA and the US AF.
Table SEQ Table \* ARABIC 1 Space Tracking Network (Space Communication and Navigation, n.d.)

Network Application
Near Earth Network Provides ground-based tracking and communication services.
Space Network Provides Space based tracking and communication services.
Deep Space Network Monitor deep space activity
Space Surveillance Network (SSN) was developed in the U.S after the launch of the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 and was enhance by different operators such as the USAF, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) and U.S Navy (USN) (Norad.mil. n.d). However, SSN was not the first Surveillance system by the U.S. In 1940, before the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1958, the U.S proposed a common defence system for North American. This system created by two nations America and Canada and is known as the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD) (Norad.mil. n.d). The main purpose at that time was to defend against Soviet bombers threat. On March 1996, the mission of NORAD was reviewed and was used for aerospace defence as well as assist civilian authority to track and monitor aircraft. On the other hand, SSN involves in detecting, tracking, cataloguing, predicting re-entry satellites, and identifying man-made objects currently orbiting earth. To carry out these operations, the system requires several types of sensor such as Phased-array radars (PAR), Ground-Based-Electro Optics Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS), conventional radars, and Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite (Sgobba and Allahdadi, 2013). All these sensors combined, provides a large amount of data to be collected and these data are collected from different sites around the world.
Currently, the TFR is efficient as the number of spaceflight operation is limited. However, in the next decade, the number of commercial spaceflight operations will increase and the TFR will not be able to be efficient to separate both vehicles from each other. Although the SSR can aid space vehicles to transit to and from other space, it is not in compliance with FAA ATC. Additionally, sharing the authority to different entities similar to the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) concept, will not work as it decreases the efficiency, productivity and capacity of the NAS. In Space Network (SN), a satellite-based tracking and communication network which relies on the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites System (TDRSS) could be used to manage spaceflight operations, but it is limited to the number of spaceflight activity and expensive for frequent civilian operations. Therefore, to meet the demand of spaceflight operations and seamlessly integrate spaceflight operations under the FAA’s control, the NextGen ATM system and the Space and Air Traffic Management (ATM) can be enhanced to coordinate both operations in the NAS. Thus, by doing so, the impact of spaceflight operation in the NAS will be mitigated.

Space Transportation System
There are three basic types of space vehicle profile: Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL), Vertical Take-off and Horizontal Landing (VTHL), and Horizontal Take-off and Landing (HTOL) (Hilton et al., 2019). The current space vehicle profile is an example of VTOL and the orbiter space shuttle for VTHL. In the future, it is expected that the space vehicle profile will change form VTOL to VTHL and Horizontal Take-off and Landing (HTOL). The new advancement in technology allowed for more sophisticated vehicles such as the SpaceX reusable launch rocket boosters which return to ground and is reused on other spaceflight mission. To introduce spaceflight operations, several ports will be required around the world. Other HTOL vehicles having the same profile as an aircraft will be used to launch space vehicles into earth orbit. The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipOne is a vehicle which will use the air launch concept to launch into space [10].
In the future of space transportation system, with high flight rate of spaceflight operations, standardisation and interoperability is essential to accommodate frequent spaceflight operations conducted by different users. Therefore, a network centric architecture will need to be developed to provide information of space vehicles throughout the different flight phases on a global scale. Moreover, the current CNS+A infrastructure needs to be enhanced to distribute information of aviation users and spaceflight operators. CNS+A infrastructure is necessary in providing integrated situational awareness throughout the NAS. Hence, to merge the spaceflight and aviation operations in the NAS, these system needs to be enhanced by improving the technological capabilities and regulations. Consequently, surveillance services are the key to successfully integrate both operations in the NAS. The use of FAA’s ADS-B technology to provide advance surveillance information in aviation can be used to aid for future commercial space travel.

Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B)
The ADS-B is the modern surveillance technology used in aviation and in FAA NextGen. It is a combination of satellites-based GPS, transmitters, and receivers to provide ground station and other aircrafts at proximity with surveillance information (Nag et al., 2016). There are two main aspect of the ADS-B, ADS-B Out and ADS-B In. ADS-B Out signal are sent by a transmitting aircraft to broadcast an aircraft position and velocity information to ground stations and aircrafts, whereas the ADS-B In receive the information transmitted by the other aircraft. ADS-B uses satellite GPS which provides precise navigational information compared to traditional radar surveillance system. Navigational information received by the ADS-B In is displayed on the Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI) which aid pilots to navigate while increasing situational awareness. The information is transmitted every 1 seconds to the ground station and aircraft via two main datalinks: 1)1090 Extended Squitter (ES) and 2) Universal Access Transceiver (UAT). ADS-B provides several advantages when it comes to managing aircrafts, such as reduce separation distance, delay time and runway incursion, improve tracking and management system in the NAS, low ground ATM workload, and improving situational awareness.

ADS-B are installed on the aircrafts, UAVs and surface vehicles operating within terminal area, and ground station. The ADS-B automatically and periodically transmits its position and velocity to other aircraft and ground stations without pilot inputs (Nag et al., 2016). ADS-B is designed to increase the situational awareness among aircraft and provide surveillance information to ATC. ADS-B technology is more advanced and sophisticated compared to conventional ground-based surveillance radar based on accuracy and timing. Continuous improvement is being made in improving capability of ADS-B such as the Aireon Hosted Payload (AHP) which is a Space-based ADS-B receiver on board the Iridium Next constellation. The space-based ADS-B enables a 100 % global coverage which targets remote areas where ADS-B ground receivers is not available (Aireon.com. n.d ).Therefore, the use of radar surveillance system will decrease gradually. All vehicles which are equipped with an ADS-B will be able to exchange navigational information (e.g., Position, velocity, Identification, and intention).

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