Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Tool Capabilities Updates for Antenna Pattern and Jitter

[摘要] The ability to accurately simulate the dynamic misalignment of pointing across a communications link is critical to determining the link performance between/across spacecraft and/or ground stations. The communication system antenna pattern and dynamic misalignment are key components to understanding the pointing loss induced on the communications link. Currently, projects performing these analyses use a variety of simulation tools and packages. NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) office aims to provide a unified tool set for these functions. However, the analysis tool to calculate antenna patterns is currently static, two-dimensional, and approximated based on limited input. Steps were taken to change the inputs used by the tool to create a more accurate approximation of the antenna's far field pattern as well as create a three-dimensional pattern. An additional tool was also developed to calculate time-dynamic pointing loss from the antenna pattern generated or observed antenna pattern data given dynamic pointing errors.

[发布日期] 2019-10-01

[学科分类] 工程和技术（综合）

[关键词] ANTENNA RADIATION PATTERNS;COMMUNICATION NETWORKS;COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION;DATA LINKS;DIFFRACTION PATTERNS;ERROR ANALYSIS;FAR FIELDS;PERFORMANCE PREDICTION;SPACE COMMUNICATION;VIBRATION