With a growing global satellite environment in the region, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of Oman has been at the forefront of modernizing its telecommunications infrastructure and regulating the telecom market to benefit the economy.
The TRA of Oman was well aware that with the rapid rise in the number of radio communication networks and wireless devices, an increasingly dense signal environment was emerging. This raised concerns that the frequency spectrum would become congested leading to potential increases in interference and that illegal transmissions would occur more frequently.
Yousuf Al-Balushi, Vice President for Spectrum Management Affairs for Oman’s TRA, explained “Satellite spectrum is a scarce national asset that can be subject to unauthorized usage, interference and other threats.”
Foreseeing this issue and to protect the satellite spectrum, the TRA of Oman put a plan in place to develop a one-of-a-kind satellite monitoring station in the region to guarantee reliable licensed satellite services and interference-free operation.
Foreseeing this issue and to protect the satellite spectrum, the TRA of Oman put a plan in place to develop a one-of-a-kind satellite monitoring station in the region to guarantee reliable licensed satellite services and interference-free operation.
Building the Most Advanced Space Radio Monitoring Station (ASRMS)
In 2014, after evaluating offers from multiple vendors, the TRA of Oman selected Kratos to implement a turnkey Advanced Space Radio Monitoring Station (ASRMS). Over the next few years, Kratos worked with the TRA of Oman to build a turnkey radio monitoring station.
Design
In the engineering phase of the project, the TRA of Oman led the effort with the support of Kratos in completing the Critical Design Review (CDR). The completion of this phase demonstrated that the design would exceed the requirements of the project and that the team could move to the full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration and testing of the ASRMS.
Build Out
Starting with a completely barren site, Kratos managed the build-out to support the ASRMS. This included the installation of the antennas—one of the most critical parts of the implementation. The TRA of Oman wanted to monitor signals from geostationary satellites in the orbital arc covering an extremely wide area from Europe to Asia. The challenge was to cover all available extended frequency ranges with all polarizations using full motion antennas or large antennas with very advanced and reliable tracking systems. To meet this need, seven separate multiband antennas developed by Kratos ranging in diameters from 3.7M, 6.2M to 7.3M and covering L-, S-, C-, X-, Ku-, Kabands were installed successfully. This enabled the ASRMS to cover a world-leading range of 1GHz to 40GHz.
Regulator Operations: Detect, Locate and Resolve
Using GeoMon as a centralized management system, the TRA of Oman operations staff is able to:
• Command Compass, a monitoring and control product to direct antennas to satellite orbital positions including paths, polarizations and the flow of signals. The team is also able to control and monitor all the radio equipment and view alarms indicating problems or the malfunction of equipment
• Send measurement requests to Monics, the carrier monitoring software that detects and analyzes radio signals received from satellites and delivers the frequency and time domain measurements to provide the most advanced interference protection
• Geolocate the signals received in the downlink (Space-to-Earth) using the satID product to determine the location of unlawful usage and transmissions originating from Oman and the location of the radio signals that cause interference
State of-the-Art RF Monitoring and Geolocation
Using the ASRMS, the TRA of Oman has defined over 200 satellites with 2000 transponders to manage more than 800 licenses. This allows the TRA of Oman to effectively safeguard the RF spectrum as a national resource and to:
• Control the use of frequency spectrum and space resources by verifying that existing uses are compatible with the radio licenses granted by the TRA.
• Monitor and measure satellite signals within the Sultanate and in neighbouring countries, with the capability of verifying cases of interference at the regional, national and international levels.
• Detect and resolve accidental and intentional interference by identifying and then geolocating the source from within the country or from neighbouring nations.
• Coordinate with the ITU and other regulators by providing monitoring services and satellite data to minimize cases of interference.
• Support national projects and activities related to space services such as national satellite launches and allocations of orbital positions and frequencies per the ITU.
