Development of a web-based ground station system for an advanced nano-satellite (VELOX-I)

• Main Author: Goh, Wei Rong.
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Satellite telecommunication
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/53054
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The replacement or migration of software-based applications to Web-based applications is a growing trend as it allows higher cross platform compatibility, ease of data consolidation and system management, efficient system updates and maintenance, and fewer requirements at end users. The objective of this Final Year Project (FYP) is to develop a Web based ground station application that will interface with the receiver at the ground station and present the data collected. Being Web-based, multiple users should be allowed to monitor the information received from the satellite. Security measures have to be enforced so that only valid users can obtain information from the system. In this project, several software applications were already in place to help ground station operators predict the satellite passing time, receive and decode signals, and store them in a directory. But storing the data in zipped files made it rather inconvenient for ground station operators to study or analyze them. To better house and organize the information, a database system was developed using MySQL. Following the establishment of the database system, an Apache Web server, Tomcat Servlet container and PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) were installed and configured to host the JavaServer Pages (JSP) which provides the critical data monitoring functionalities. These webpages were designed and developed through a series of requirements analysis, design, development, implementation and testing. Subsequently, additional administrative functionalities were proposed and integrated to make the system more comprehensive. In summary, a full-fledge Web-based system was developed and implemented on a server machine in the Aerospace Electronics Lab in preparation for the launch of Velox-P and Velox-I satellites in the year 2013.