SATSOFT 3.3 has just been released with several new features selected on the basis of customer feedback. The improved user interface offers advanced management of SATSOFT projects where external pattern data can be easily and quickly used for setting up new satellites and antennas or for updating existing ones. Comparison between patterns, e.g. predicted and realized performance, is facilitated through the delta pattern feature which not only shows the dB difference by means of contour plots but also in performance tables.

Powerful pattern data management

With the new Pattern Data Manager in SATSOFT, the user will experience more flexibility when importing pattern data from external files and when defining new satellites and antennas or updating existing ones. Satellites can be created in the Pattern Data Manager with user-specified name and position, and child-antennas can be created with the same name as the pattern data or according to a user-defined naming scheme. Similarly, new child-antennas can be added to existing satellites. What used to be a tedious task in the case of managing numerous antennas and satellites, is now made much easier through the Pattern Data Manager.

Computation of dB delta pattern between any two beams

For SATSOFT PRO users, it is possible to compute a dB delta pattern between any two beams available in a SATSOFT project. This could be the case when comparing in-orbit testing (IOT) data with pre-launch data, or when evaluating the impact of moving a satellite from one location to another. Additionally, cities can be added to the map and performance tables can be created for delta patterns to tabulate delta pattern values for stations and cities. Delta Pattern can be generated for beams of antennas on the same satellite as well as for antennas on different satellites. The delta pattern feature thus makes comparison of antenna patterns in SATSOFT, both visually and in tabulated form, more straightforward.

More options for pre-processing to POS

When SATSOFT is used as pre-processor to POS, the user will experience more flexibility in terms of which information can be carried over to the POS project. Stations can be defined with cross-polar discrimination (XPD) goals in addition to co- and cx-pol goals. Specifically, export of stations or as part of a POS project export, can include cx-pol and/or XPD goals in addition to co-pol goals.

Furthermore, SATSOFT PRO users may choose to have distance attenuation written in the station file during export from SATSOFT. In this way, it will be possible to account for the difference in distance between stations during the subsequent antenna optimisation in POS. The feature populates the ATT column in station files with the attenuation in dB relative to the sub-satellite point.

Many other enhancements have been implemented in the latest SATSOFT version, all leading to an even better user experience.  As always, we have also taken the opportunity to correct a number of bugs that the users have reported since last release.

With an active Technical Support and Maintenance Contract (TSM), SATSOFT 3.3 can be downloaded from the support site.

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