# Assessing the Capacity and Coverage of Satellite IoT for Developing Countries Using a CubeSat
## 3 Coverage and Capacity Evaluation
### Number of GSTs Visible per Day (\(n_{\text{GST}}\))  
The GSTs for the KITSUNE SloT mission are simultaneously being developed in 11 different agencies/institutions predominantly from the developing countries. The participating countries are part of the BIRDS Ground Station Network (GSN) that was initially formed to support the missions of BIRDS constellation of satellites [41]. The countries that are a part of the GST Network along with the application are explained in Table 6. Most of these participating countries have significantly limited access to space technologies with highly constrained space programs. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c} \hline \hline
**The parameters from GST to the satellite** \\ \hline Transmission power & 20 mW (13 dBm) \\ Maximum antenna gain & 6 dBi \\ GST transmission line loss & 1 dB \\ GST Antenna pointing loss & 3 dB * \\ Polarization loss & 3 dB * \\ Atmosphere + ionosphere loss & 1.5 dB * \\
**The parameters for the satellite receiver** \\ Antenna pointing loss & 3 dB * \\ Antenna gain & 0 dBi \\ Receiver sensitivity & \(-\)135 dBm for 433 MHz \\ Transmission power & 20 mW (13 dBm) \\ Maximum antenna gain & 0 dBi \\ Receiver sensitivity & \(-\)135 dBm for 433 MHz \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: The parameters used for the link budget calculation. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Satellite elevations** & **Path Loss** & **GST Antenna Gain** & **Link Budget** \\ \hline
0 degrees & 152.39 dB & \(-\)3.50 dBi & \(-\)19.38 dB \\
10 degrees & 148.35 dB & 2.10 dBi & \(-\)9.84 dB \\
20 degrees & 145.04 dB & 3.20 dBi & \(-\)5.53 dB \\
30 degrees & 142.56 dB & 5.50 dBi & \(-\)0.55 dB \\
40 degrees & 140.72 dB & 6.00 dBi & 1.79 dB \\
60 degrees & 138.39 dB & 6.10 dBi & 4.22 dB \\
90 degrees & 137.22 dB & 5.90 dBi & 5.29 dB \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: Link budget calculations for different elevations. The orbital path of the KITSUNE is simulated for 24 h in STK software, and all possible passes for GST network countries participating in the SIoT mission are generated. On average, each country has five passes per day while each pass varies between four minutes to ten minutes. The path of the passes is shown in Figure 14.  
In Section 3.1 a positive link margin is derived for elevations greater than 33 degrees. According to the simulation, there is at least one pass per day with elevation greater than 30 degrees in each country. For delay-tolerant applications, collection of data once per day is tolerable for these kinds of applications. For in-depth analysis of number of visible GSTs for a longer period, the orbital path was simulated for one month (31 days) for elevation angles greater than 33 degrees. The result of the simulation is summarized in Figure 15. In summary, the number of GSTs that are visible for elevation greater than 33 degrees ranges between a minimum of 12 passes to a maximum of 22 passes in a day and an average of 16 passes for the entire period. The average elevation angles per day varies between 47 degrees to 64.50 degrees and an average of 56 degrees for the whole period. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline
**SI** & **Countries** & **Target Application** \\
**No.** & **Countries** & **Target Application** \\ \hline
1 & Bhutan & Weather parameters \\
2 & Costa Rica & Weather Parameters \\
3 & Malaysia & Air quality, temperature, and humidity \\
4 & Mongolia & Temperature, air pressure and humidity \\
5 & Nepal & Water level of glacier lakes and weather parameters \\
6 & Paraguay \({}^{\star}\) & Environmental parameters (AEP) \\ Monitoring of transmission lines (ANDE) \\
7 & Philippines & Gas, humidity, pressure, temperature \\
8 & Sri Lanka & Water level in reservoirs, weather data \\
9 & Taiwan & Earthquake detection using GNSS sensors \\
10 & Uganda & Air quality measurement and atmospheric humidity \\
11 & Zimbabwe & Soil moisture for landslide prediction \\ \hline \end{tabular} \({}^{\star}\)Two GSTs.  
\end{table} 
Table 6: The countries participating in S&F IoT mission in alphabetical order.