A reference station emulator for testing Intelsat TDMA/DSI terminals

This paper describes the architecture and functional capabilities of a reference station emulator (RSE) developed for testing Intelsat traffic terminal and reference terminal protocols and for verifying terminal performance. The RSE is basically a computer-controlled TDMA burst generator and burst receiver that has been specifically designed to test the traffic and reference terminals under both normal and stress conditions. Because the RSE can generate controlled fault conditions in reference and traffic burst stimuli, it can create specific stress conditions which enable detection of numerous protocol errors that would remain undiscovered with the use of simplified tests. Configurations for both laboratory and field tests are discussed.