Low-Complexity Tracking System For Land Mobile Geo Satellite Terminals Under Mobility and Blockage Conditions

Abstract

Maintaining reliable satellite connectivity for land mobile terminals operating over geostationary links remains challenging due to vehicular motion, urban shadowing, and intermittent signal blockage. While several tracking techniques have been proposed, limited work has experimentally quantified their realignment latency, availability, and robustness under realistic mobility scenarios. This paper presents a comprehensive performance evaluation of a low-complexity tracking system for Land Mobile Satellite Service terminals, validated through hardware-in-the-loop emulation and vehicular field trials. Key performance indicators include RMS pointing error, reacquisition latency, link availability, and energy efficiency. A novel Latency Reduction Index is introduced to quantify realignment improvement relative to a GNSS/INS-only baseline. Experimental results demonstrate over 30% reduction in steady-state pointing error, LRI exceeding 0.35 during step disturbances and tunnel exits, and link availability of at least 99% in rural line-of-sight conditions and 97% in urban shadowed environments. The findings confirm the practical viability of the proposed tracking approach for mobile GEO satellite terminals.

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