Ensuring Radio Frequency Compatibility (RFC) on-Board a Satellite by Early Analysis and Efficient Methods for Field Prediction

Transmitters (=Tx) on-board a satellite generate a n electromagnetic environment with potential impact on victim receivers (=Rx, e.g., instruments) placed nearby. E nsuring Radio Frequency Compatibility (RFC) on-board a satellite is hence an important point to be considered during sa tellite design and requires an optimized satellite configur ation. This contribution concentrates on RFC issues in practica l satellite design by considering the future MetOp-SG meteorolo gical satellites: First, an overview is given summarizing the various transmitters and instrument receivers on-board the satellites. Then, the fundamentals of RFC analysis are presente d showing the method how to compute the coupling factor betwe en a Tx and a victim Rx. To improve the decoupling, MetOp-SG satellites are housing dedicated baffles between Tx and Rx antennas. Therefore, the contribution finally studi es in detail the signal attenuation caused by a baffle by compar ing two methods: field simulation and an extended knife-edg e diffraction theory. By combining both methods, the overall engineering and computation effort to optimize the baffle design is minimized. KeywordsMetOp-SG; Radio Frequency Compatibility; coupling factor; knife-edge diffraction; baffle attenuation.