Space Based ADS-B receiver for IST sat-1

Luís Filipe Brás Pinto Pereira

Key information

Authors:

Luís Filipe Brás Pinto Pereira (Luís Filipe Brás Pinto Pereira)

Supervisors:

Alberto Manuel Ramos da Cunha (Alberto Manuel Ramos da Cunha); Rui Manuel Rodrigues Rocha (Rui Manuel Rodrigues Rocha)

Published in

November 13, 2019

Abstract

A CubeSat is a 10 cm cube low-cost satellite with a mass up to 1.33 kg commonly launched into a Low Earth Orbit, which extends until an altitude of 2000 Km. The ISTsat-1 is the first nanosatellite developed by the ISTnanosat team. This satellite is intended to test the reliability of an aircraft tracking system namely the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system, being its scientific payload. The major requirement for the payload mission is related to the acquisition of signals while decoding ADS-B messages at the same time. This master thesis focuses on the description of the ADS-B messages that are relevant to the algorithm developed in order to receive and decode them. Alongside, the possible architectures to overcome the mission requirements are described with particular attention to the ADS-B algorithm necessary to detect and decode ADS-B messages and the LPC4370 peripherals that will help to receive and sample the respective messages. Therefore, the several results acquired with the final solution are provided and a performance evaluation is given regarding the CPU usage and the power consumption. Finally, a real test case is provided in order to understand the feasibility of the system in the earth's surface and to guarantee that the system works as required.