STM Norway announced the first demonstration of DVB-RCS2, the recently completed second generation of the DVB-RCS standard.
The implementation of the new standard on STM's SatLink platform was witnessed in a demonstration on at an event in Norway attended by representatives of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Norwegian Space Center.
RCS2 provides for higher order modulation and coding along with many other elements contributing to higher throughput and bandwidth efficiency. Total efficiency gains with RCS2 can be as large as 300 percent on TDMA carriers compared to legacy VSAT networks. STM’s implementation of DVB-RCS2 will yield bandwidth efficiencies up to 2.9 bps/Hz on TDMA carriers and offer excellent return link availability with ACM, as is critical for new broadband networks.
Plus, there are significant gains in the average throughput per VSAT with SatLink’s higher symbol rate support and much higher capacity carrier groups with fast dynamic bandwidth sharing via frequency hopping.
The DVB-RCS2 standard was published by the DVB organization (www.DVB.org) in March of this year based on collaborative work by many leading industry participants. Both the specification and implementation are the culmination of three years of advanced development, in which STM Norway was the key technology contributor, leading several research organizations under contract to ESA.