News 2022

Congratulations to Dr.-Ing. Tony Colin

On the 15th of December 2022, Mr. Colin successfully defended his doctoral thesis entitled „A Unified Mathematical Framework for Link Budget Analysis and Optimization in Satellite Communications Systems.“
In particular, his thesis lays the foundation for more accurate and optimized communications links for next-generation satellite systems. This work is especially beneficial to satellite manufacturers by providing tools to accelerate the satellite development process and valuable to satellite operators by enabling higher capacity performances for future satellites.
Based on his excellent contribution and his outstanding performance in the final qualifying examination, Mr. Colin convinced the jury composed of Jun.-Prof. Hofmann (Chairman, UniBw) and the examiners Prof. Bernd Friedrichs (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Prof. Barry Evans (University of Surrey) and Prof. Andreas Knopp (Supervisor, UniBw M). They awarded him the doctoral degree with the highest distinction (summa cum laude). Tony Colin works as a freelancer and satellite technology consultant at Spacecom Consulting a consulting company created in August 2022.

Best Publication Award 2022

December 2022: The Institute for Information Technology awarded the “Best Publication 2022 Award” to the authors Yazhou Zhu, Christian A. Hofmann, and Andreas Knopp for the paper "Distributed Resource Optimization for NOMA Transmission in Beamforming SATCOM" in the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. This paper is part of the special issue on next-generation multiple access. This work investigated the incorporation of Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) with existing Beamforming-SATCOM for higher throughput and more user connectivity. More importantly, this work gave insights into resource optimization methods with user fairness objectives for non-orthogonal SATCOM. The results demonstrated that the benefit of NOMA is achievable in overloaded satellite systems since the high user channel correlation is generally inherent in a multibeam geo-satellite system.

Kick-Off SATCOMBw 3 Consulting

November 10, 2022: Hosted by our institute, a group of about 20 experts in satellite communications have kicked-off a unique consulting contracted with the Bundeswehr's procurement office BAAINBw. In the frame of this contract, we team with the companies KMPG, DIRACON, ACTRANS and Audens to provide guidelines for the technical outline, specification, and procurement of the next generation of military communication satellites. The contract has a duration of about seven years and will, therefore, shape the landscape of German military SATCOM for the next decade and beyond. We are proud of being selected as the principial R&D consultant for this lighthouse project.

Demonstration of 5G New Radio Direct Access via GEO Satellite.

October 2022: A World’s first – the ESA ARTES 5G GOA project demonstrates 5G-NR direct connectivity in Stand Alone mode over a geostationary satellite in Ku band.
The European Space Agency - ESA ARTES 5G GOA project demonstrated 5G New Radio direct connectivity in Stand Alone mode over a geostationary satellite in Ku band at the 39th International Communications Satellite Systems Conference (ICSSC 2022), 18-21 October, Stresa, Italy – a World’s first. The demonstration used occasional use capacity from SES Satellites`s Astra 2F and relied on the suitably adapted OpenAirInterface Software Alliance™ implementation for a 5G base station and a 5G user terminal, mounted in a van equipped by a 45 cm satellite dish.
5G GOA is a collaboration between Eurescom GmbH, Fraunhofer IIS, University of Luxembourg SnT, and University of the Bundeswehr Munich.

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project HARMONY

October 2022: The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project HARMONY, funded under Horizon Europe, has been officially kicked-off on October 25th, 2022 at Thales Alenia Space France in Toulouse. Nine highly talented PhD students will be recruited within the HARMONY consortium to conduct research on promising technologies for future multilayered satellite systems. HARMONY aims to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration between the researchers’ activities. As a consequence, the project has been structured around three core competencies - system engineering, signal processing and antenna hardware design – to gain deep insight into the design of these complex systems.
The kick-off meeting has been the occasion for all partners to present their institution and thoroughly discuss the scientific objectives of the project. Ulf Johannsen, coordinator of the ANTERRA project, another Marie Curie Action focusing on satellite systems, also got the opportunity to present his project and explore potential synergies with HARMONY.

ASMS Best Paper Award

M.Sc. Eriserdi Mollaymeri, research assistant at the institute for information technology of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Knopp was awarded the prestigious “Best Paper Award” on 9th September 2022 at the 11th “Advanced Satellite Multimedia Conference (ASMS)” held in Graz, Austria.
The paper of Mr. Mollaymeri, coauthored with his research group leader Dr.-Ing Thomas Delamotte, is entitled: “Timing Alignment of Distributed Gateways: Theoretical Analysis and Experimental Demonstration”. This work addresses one of the challenges encountered today in the design of very high throughput satellite (VHTS) systems: the synchronization of the gateway stations used to uplink signals to the satellite. Thanks to this study, which has also been based on an experimental verification, a better understanding of the basic design trade-offs in the gateway to satellite links has been acquired. The findings of this paper pave the way to more efficient ground segment infrastructures.
The “Advanced Satellite Multimedia Conference” is one of the most renowned conferences on satellite communications, this year organized by the DLR Institute for Communications and Navigation and supported by the European Space Agency (ESA). The conference was held in conjunction with the 17th “Signal Processing for Space Communications Workshop”.

Strategic Research Exchange

On Sept. 6, 2022, Dr. Joel B. Mozer, director, Science, Technology and Research, U.S. Space Force (USSF), briefed the Pentagon, Arlington, Va. (USA) about the SPACE research center. Dr. Mozer is responsible for strategic research partnerships of the U.S. Space Force and showed great interest in the capabilities of our research center as well as the existing international research collaborations. Prof. Knopp, one of the two spokespersons of SPACE, reported on the research priorities as well as on the dtec.bw project SeRANIS. Pivotal points for the conversation were the initiative of DLR, represented by Dr. Kerstin Huber, which organized a tour of Germany for Dr. Mozer, as well as Prof. Knopp's visiting professorship at the Naval Postgraduate in Monterey (CA), USA, a strategic partner institution of the USSF.

AFCEA Master Thesis Award

May 12, 2022: The master thesis of First Lieutenant Jonas Hofmann was awarded a 3rd Prize at the AFCEA Symposium in Bonn. The thesis “Cyclostationary Signal Detection and Doppler Rate Correction for LEO Nanosatellites in the ISM Band” tackles the problem of detecting the presence of communication signals after transmission over a low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite channel. Especially the severe Doppler effects in LEOs, the low transmit power of small satellites and an environment of strong interference render this a challenging problem. The results can be used for a variety of applications such as civil cognitive radio tasks and or military signal intelligence. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Andreas Knopp and written as a research collaboration at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Space Systems Academic Group (SSAG) in Monterey, CA. The SSAG has been a pioneer in building and operating small satellites for many decades. Ongoing follow-up work of Hofmann’s thesis was partially published at IEEE conferences and will be part of the dtec.bw project SeRANIS.

*dtec.bw – Digitalization and Technology Research Center of the Bundeswehr – is a scientific center jointly supported by both universities of the Bundeswehr and part of the German government's economic stimulus program to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. With its inclusion in the German Recovery and Resilience Plan (GRRP), dtec.bw is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

Best Student Paper Award

April 08, 2022: The paper „Capacity Analysis of a MIMO Laser Link from Lunar Surface to Earth” won the Student Best-Paper-Award in the IEEE International Conference on Space Optical Systems and Application (ICSOS 2022). The paper was written by the authors group from University of Bundeswehr Munich (UniBw M) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR): Hung Le Son, Robert Schwarz, Marcus Knopp, Dirk Giggenbach and Andreas Knopp. In this paper, a precise calculation was built to investigate the fluctuation of channel capacity of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) laser link from lunar surface to Earth. Using the results of this calculation, the authors proposed the methods to mitigate the fluctuation and maximize the channel capacity. The paper also showed the potential of the MIMO technology in the laser communications. It increases not only the capacity and, thus, the data transfer rate, but also the reliability of the communication channel. The UniBw M cooperates with the DLR and especially its research center in the field of space travel and space communication. The cooperation has been intensified since 2021 in the dtec.bw project SeRANIS.

*dtec.bw – Digitalization and Technology Research Center of the Bundeswehr – is a scientific center jointly supported by both universities of the Bundeswehr and part of the German government's economic stimulus program to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. With its inclusion in the German Recovery and Resilience Plan (GRRP), dtec.bw is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

Kick-off of the ICARUS Machine Learning Project

March 2022: ICARUS (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) is an initiative from researchers in the domain of animal behavior to develop a tracking system able to follow the movements on Earth of various animal species. Academic partners with expertise in satellite communication systems, including the Chair of Signal Processing, have been involved in the past years in the signal processing design necessary to recover via a space-based relay the position data from very small transmitters on the animals. Following the successful deployment of this ICARUS system, a follow-up project has been kicked-off this month to extend its capacities. During this study, machine learning techniques to improve the detection and the analysis of weaker signals will be developed to enable a further reduction of the size and weight of the transmitters and, hence, allow the tracking of even smaller animals.
The project is supported by the German Aerospace Center with funds from the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) and led by the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.

ESA 5G-GOA Project enters Phase 2

March 2022: Together with our consortium partners we have successfully passed the Critical Design Review in December 2021 and progressed the ESA funded 5G-GOA project into the second phase.
Standardisation of 5G at 3GPP is progressing rapidly. Release 17 features supporting Non-Terrestrial Networks (i.e. satellites) will be frozen in March 2022 as planned. Early demonstrations and validation are essential to support further standardisation. Inevitably, any such activity relies on the availability of a 5G NTN protocol stack implementation. One implementation that is available for research purposes, i.e. open and accessible for the necessary NTN adaptations, is the one by the Open-Air Interface Software Alliance.
Recognising the importance of a protocol stack implementation suitable for validating NTN aspects the European Space Agency contracted the 5G-GOA consortium to develop the necessary extensions to the OAI protocol stack implementation.
5G-GOA is committed to provide wide range of OAI extensions necessary for NTN experimentation and validation considering geostationary satellites, namely in PHY, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC and NAS Layers. You can find a detailed list of all OAI extensions at the 5G-GOA project website or at our LinkedIn page / 5G GOA Statement.pdf.
Further information can be found here and here.

SeRANIS passes System Requirements Review

February 2022: What a great honor for our SeRANIS project: A top-class team of experts from science, the aerospace industry and the Bundeswehr reviewed the project progress of the planned low-earth-orbit satellite mission at the Bundeswehr University Munich.
Vice Admiral Dr. Thomas Daum (Inspector Cyber and Information Space), Major General Jürgen Setzer (Deputy Inspector Cyber and Information Space), Prof. Dr. Martin Wikelski (Director at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior and member of the Leopoldina) and Dr. Anke Pagels-Kerp (DLR Head of Space Department), concluded that the selected experiments on UniBw’s research satellite have great future potential and that the continuation of the project is highly recommended. From the panel's point of view, the scientific design of the mission, the process maturity of the project, and the contribution to the mission objective of the German Armed Forces have clearly been met. Thus, another milestone has been reached. Prof. Knopp concludes: "We are very pleased that the reviewers assess SeRANIS as a European lighthouse project for German space innovation!”.