Maximum likelihood estimation of G/T of satellite earth terminals using extraterrestrial radio sources

摘要

To measure the figure of merit (G/T) and beam radial pointing error of a satellite earth station multiple Y-factor measurement are taken using a "drift cut" procedure and then these measurements are processed using a maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) algorithm. For carrying out the "drift cut" measurement process, the earth terminal's antenna is positioned such that the antenna beam intersects the path of the apparent star motion with a predetermined declination offset and ahead of the current star position. As the star position approaches the stationary antenna beam position, power measurements uniformly spaced in time are recorded. These power measurement "samples" are then divided by the "cold sky" power measurement to obtain corresponding Y-factor measurements. To eliminate the problem of antenna pointing error and star ephemeris error, multiple drift cuts are carried out, each offset in declination by a different amount from the estimate star declination, to produce a matrix of Y-factor values. This matrix of drift cut Y-factors is then processed using a maximum likelihood estimate algorithm, to provide MLE measures of that earth terminal's figure of merit and beam radial pointing error.