By Lynn Greiner
GEORGINA, Ont. – The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has its fingers in a lot of pies, and at a conference held last week by Canada’s Rural and Remote Broadband Community (CRRBC), Lynne Genik, director of the high throughput and secure networks (HTSN) challenge program at the NRC, spoke about how the HTSN program is helping to address the digital divide.
One of eight challenge programs run by the NRC as part of its collaborative science, technology and innovation program, HTSN began in 2019, and is funded until 2028. NRC researchers and facilities from across 14 research centres, along with academic and industry partners, are focusing on four key areas: optical satellite communications, quantum communications, network metrology and timing, and photonics for fibre and fixed wireless networks.
Genik’s talk focused on the optical satellite communications project, administered through the Optical SatCom Consortium, whose research priorities include:
- high capacity reliable downlinks for remote regions
- hybrid RF-optical link solutions
- advanced optical satcom system architecture
- free space optical channel modeling
Research and development in this project supports the creation of increased capacity for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations and their complementary ground infrastructure. The projects will work to develop and improve existing photonic and optical components and systems, and to customize them for satellite optical links (ground to satellite, satellite to ground, and inter-satellite), and on-board satellite data transport and processing.
In parallel, projects will look at improving complementary aspects of network optimization, such as caching, peering and use of artificial intelligence for network management and support. A total of $24.2 million in funding was made available to the program to fund its collaborators in academia and small business.
Yet commercially, Genik said, satellite has its limits. Current LEO radio frequency-based constellations can only serve a finite number of subscribers, especially as users demand more and more bandwidth. And of the existing announced constellations, only Starlink is currently providing service. (OneWeb, which at one point had declared bankruptcy, is now planning service for 2023, and Amazon plans to have its satellites fully deployed by 2029.) So why bother with optical satellite communications when, Genik said, the business case is not entirely clear?
“There are still satellite dependent communities in Canada that have no other options, as long as there’s no fibre,” she said. “Canada’s a massive country, as you know. And it costs a lot of money to lay fibre, especially when you get into rock and ice and snow and things like that. So, it just isn’t always a viable solution.
“And there are a number of advantages of optical satcom over the current radio frequency solutions, such as the bandwidth. So, the bandwidth is going to be multitudes of factors higher, essentially. That translates to higher upload and download speeds in the community.”
The satellites use unregulated spectrums, so there are no licensing requirements, she noted, and other advantages include lower power requirements, lower signal interference and higher security of the signal. But downsides include the fact that cloud cover is a deal-breaker; the optical satellites transmit data over highly focused laser beams.
This is a major R&D challenge to overcome, as is the need for precise tracking systems to capture those laser beams from the fast-moving satellites. Another is the expense of the infrastructure, because, Genik noted, “in the end, if it’s not going to be cost effective, then people aren’t going to use it. So, our goal within our research team is really to focus on increasing the capacity of these optical satcom systems.”
The NRC is working on a field demonstration, first in Ottawa, then in a remote community, and is seeking partners such as satellite providers, mobile platforms and ground stations to help researchers test and enhance the technology. “We’re looking at developing disruptive technologies and technologies that are many times better than what’s currently available,” said Genik.
