Satellite data communications as acomplement to GSM

Abstract: The use of mobile Internet has reached the transport industry. Internet will be used to transport important and security-critical information from and to vehicles. Using Internet in this context raises a severe problem. Only 6% of the world is covered by GSM, the primary Internet bearer for mobile usage. The subject of this thesis is to explore suitable backups in order to provide the user with global coverage for important information exchange. The messages to send and receive are small in size, often less than 100 bytes. The time factor of the transmission is important, an alert message often has to be passed within minutes to be of any use. These factors together with the global coverage leave us with only one suitable solution, a satellite data communication system. The first part of this thesis contains an investigation of the satellite communication market. Two different systems, Inmarsat-C and ORBCOMM, are chosen for further study and evaluation. One Inmarsat-C unit and two ORBCOMM units are found suitable for the application. The last part of the thesis contains the evaluation, testing and system integration of these units. The conclusion is that ORBCOMM, although not yet fully developed, has the capabilities and performance necessary for use in a mobile environment such as a truck. The two different ORBCOMM units tested, Panasonic and Stellar, were found to have comparable qualities.