Design and Validation of a Wireless Bridge for Intra-Spacecraft Communications

SpaceWire (SpW) is a reliable standard for wired intra-satellite communications offering data rates up to 200Mbps. However, the wiring mass of a satellite greatly increases the launching costs and, as such, efforts are being made to replace the wired communications with wireless links. Ultrawideband (UWB) communications proved to be a robust solution but the data rate is low. To provide throughputs similar to SpW, the HiSAT project considers using the IEEE802.11ac standard for the wireless links. In the framework of the HiSAT project, this paper presents the design and validation of a wireless bridge for intra-spacecraft communications. The proposed wireless bridge architecture is based on National Instruments (NI) USRP 2954R Software Defined Radios (SDRs) controlled by the NI PXIe-8800 host computer. The wireless bridge performance is evaluated for 1x2, 1x4, 2x1, 4x1 antenna configurations. Finally, the wireless bridge design is validated for real-time video transmissions.