Space communications and control in one testbed
5G-SpaceLab brought together SnT's satellite communications, spacecraft design and robotics laboratories. The platform connected mission scenarios with representative radios, satellite payloads and control experiments, allowing space-link behavior to be examined in an institutional testbed. Its research context includes Earth-orbiting communications and remote-control scenarios.
A space mission couples communications with the system that consumes commands and telemetry. Orbital geometry informs channel conditions, while the representative payload or controller supplies the operational observations. Evaluation links those inputs without treating a recovered radio link as proof of a successful control task.
The published testbed architecture includes FPGA channel emulation between software-defined radio components. Mission scenarios are translated into channel conditions such as delay and Doppler for laboratory evaluation. This provides institutional context for SnT's channel-emulation research and its connection to spacecraft and control work.
| Condition | Observation | Engineering question |
|---|---|---|
| Mission-derived delay/Doppler profiles | Radio synchronisation and telemetry records | Does the laboratory channel case correspond to the intended mission geometry? |
| Programmed link conditions around a representative payload | Payload/receiver traffic and state | How does the communications implementation respond within the complete testbed? |
| Communications conditions alongside a control scenario | Command/telemetry and controller observations | What happens to the control task when the communications path changes? |
SnT project funding, September 2020–September 2022.
Project roles