Sensing and Communication Applications using powerful and advanced FPGA Technology CubeSats have revolutionized the way scientific community perceive space. The majority of CubeSat communication is greatly limited by the AX.25 standards, the small communication window, the available transmission power, and the available bandwidth at VHF/UHF band.

The iBLINK SDR for CubeSat will address all the above limitations. The radio operates at S-band, employs quadrature amplitude modulation with a maximum data rate of 60 Mb/s consuming 2.6 Watts in transmit mode and 0.4 Watts in receive mode. The digital signal processing functions and the mode control of the radio are orchestrated by a field programmable gate array system-on-chip. The analog radio frequency domain is accommodated by a 4-layer printed circuit board with dimensions of 92 mm × 88 mm. The SDR is an adaptive, on-flight reconfigurable communication platform that will revolutionize the current communication capabilities of the CubeSats and expand nanosatellites mission perspectives.

The iBLINK SDR platform is utilized for a high-speed S- or K band in a highly miniaturized radio system for long distance communication and inter-satellite links. The FPGA module can be used for other advanced processing requirements such as image processing etc. utilizing the high capacity of the system. The built-in software is available for in-orbit programming or applying scripting tools limiting size of program uploads.