SatX/SE300—
Over the Air (OTA) Remote Control
Proprietary and Confidential
137
12
Over the Air (OTA) Remote Control
In many satellite communication systems, remote unmanned stations are part of the deployment plan.
Furthermore, many distant remote stations lack internet connectivity infrastructure. This results in
having to send a technical team to remote sites to deal with any issue. This can be time consuming and
costly. For any problem other than electrical power failure, OTA provides a perfect solution for
seamlessly controlling the remote units from the hub, over the satellite link, with full capabilities.
This feature is used to enable management access to a remote satellite modem, which does not have an
out-of-band management connectivity. The feature enables remote management to the remote unit,
and/or sending upgrade software to remote devices.
The mechanism allows the administrator to perform the following actions:
Access a remote unit.
Send software upgrade.
Send configuration file.
Send license file
Send configuration command.
For bi-directional based operations with IP based modems, a virtual interface addition may be needed.
The type of this interface is dependent on the data forwarding mode configured to the modems. When
working in L2, the additional virtual interface should be a “bridge” type interface, while when working in
L3, the virtual interface should be a “loopback” interface.
In unidirectional based operations, remote command execution cannot be based on feedback and
therefore a different mechanism is needed. Given that, there is no better acknowledge than human
verification on the remote side, the OTA mechanism is utilizing a smart repetition mechanism.
A dedicated logical channel was developed, for the “Over the Air” unidirectional control of remote unit,
with the name of "MGMT Channel".
The over the air payload has a dedicated Bandwidth which is added to the traditional
channel 1 and channel 2 traffic. A bandwidth of 60Kbps is allocated to the OTA MGMT channel.
12.1
Bi directional remote connectivity
The bi directional remote connectivity enables to connect the remote unit over the satellite link. This
connectivity can be done via the local unit’s management port, or via the data port.
12.1.1
Access a remote unit
12.1.1.1
Remote Set-up
A pre-requisite for the remote access to work, is to have a locked bi-directional satellite link between
the local and remote units. In order to set-up the units for remote access, the following steps must be
taken.