Rosalin Pradhan,
Sidhartha Kumar Samal,
Sritam Parida,
Bibhu Prasad Ganthia,
- Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang, Dhenkanal, Odisha, India
- Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang, Dhenkanal, Odisha, India
- Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang, Dhenkanal, Odisha, India
- Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang, Dhenkanal, Odisha, India
Abstract
Satellite communication systems operate in radiation environments in which total ionizing dose (TID), displacement damage, and single-event effects (SEE) can progressively degrade electronic, optoelectronic, and communication components and can ultimately reduce link availability and mission reliability. This paper develops a Reliability-Aware Radiation-Hardened Satellite Communication Model (R-RHSCM) that mathematically couples the orbital radiation environment, accumulated radiation dose, component degradation, communication-link performance, single-event failure probability, redundancy, thermal effects, and adaptive mitigation. The proposed formulation first derives the particle-flux-dependent dose rate and cumulative TID, followed by displacement- damage accumulation and radiation-induced degradation of gain, noise, attenuation, and component failure rate. The communication subsystem is represented through a radiation-dependent link-budget equation incorporating transmit power, antenna gains, free-space loss, atmospheric attenuation, pointing loss, and radiation-induced hardware loss. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), bit-error rate (BER), outage probability, and instantaneous communication availability are subsequently derived. A Markov reliability model is introduced to represent healthy, degraded, failed, and recovery states, while parallel redundancy and radiation-aware switching are incorporated to improve system-level reliability. The resulting reliability-aware objective simultaneously minimizes BER, outage probability, radiation-induced degradation, energy consumption, and failure probability subject to transmit-power, temperature, radiation-dose, and availability constraints. A local sensitivity and stability analysis further identifies the radiation operating region within which the communication subsystem remains reliable. The framework is intended for quantitative analysis and design of radiation-hardened satellite communication architectures, including RF and optical communication terminals.
Keywords: Satellite communication; radiation hardening; total ionizing dose; displacement damage; single-event effects
[This article belongs to Research & Reviews : Journal of Space Science & Technology ]
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Research & Reviews : Journal of Space Science & Technology
| Volume | 15 | |
| Issue | 02 | |
| Received | 21/09/2026 | |
| Accepted | 22/09/2026 | |
| Published | 26/09/2026 | |
| Publication Time | 5 Days |