High-Capacity FPGA Router for Satellite Backbone Network

Satellite backbone networks provide a viable means of establishing broadband connectivity for remote, sparsely populated areas. In addition, satellite communication systems are well suited for airborne, maritime, and disaster relief environments. Technologies for links are continuing to improve in performance and power efficiency, making onboard regeneration and routing feasible within spacecraft power envelope. In this article, we implement and analyze a spaceborne router design integrated on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). FPGA provides a flexibility needed to circumvent space radiation effects on chip circuitry, as they can be reconfigured at runtime. We explored scalability of the high-end state-of-the art FPGA chip family, and its ability to support high bit-rate satellite links: 10 Gbps satellite-to-ground links and 100 Gbps intersatellite links. Through implementation and testing, we confirm that the current FPGA technology can support space routers with very high data throughput.