# Assessing the Capacity and Coverage of Satellite IoT for Developing Countries Using a CubeSat
## 1 Introduction
Although there are many works in the literature that studied and predicted the expected performance of LoRa transceivers in LEO, many of these studies have not been validated through flight demonstrations. A small number of satellites launched with LoRa mission payloads, including a university satellite project TRICOM-1R that was successfully able to confirm the reception of data in the 920 MHz band over 300 km distance [24]. Following the design of the TRICOM-2 satellite, JPRWASAT was launched by Rwanda with a LoRa receiver, and the result of this mission has not been published thus far [25]. Sapienza University of Rome launched WildTrackCube--SIMBA [26] with LoRa receivers for monitoring the behavior of animals in Kenya. Commercial companies such as Lacuna Space have launched 5 out of a planned constellation of 240 satellites, and Swarm Technologies launched 93 out of a planned constellation of 150 satellites for achieving SIoT using LoRa modulation in the Very High Frequency (VHF) band [7]. Fossa Systems launched FOSSASAT-1 with a LoRa transceiver that could communicate with their ground module in amateur UHF band, and the on-orbit results are unavailable due to antenna deployment failure. In addition, FOSSASAT-1B had a launch failure; however, it is still planned to launch a constellation of 80 satellites for providing IoT connectivity [27]. Although many of these technology demonstrations of satellites with LoRa transceivers have been launched, a limited number of publications discuss details of LoRa payload design, on-orbit operation results, capacity, experimental outcomes, and the performance of the LoRa physical layer in LEO. This paper describes how a small satellite platform named KITSUNE has the capability to provide services to multiple developing countries for remote data collection. This paper discusses the implementation of LoRa modulation on a CubeSat and GSTs developed in domestic environments for achieving SIoT. LoRa modulation had been used for communication as it has been studied extensively, and the technology is more viable for ground-to-satellite links. The unique aspects of this study are listed below:  
* The system model is described with comprehensive details on the design of SIoT payload and the GSTs. * The payload design could be accommodated in a 1-unit CubeSat, and it could be directly plugged into the open-source BIRDS bus developed at Kyutech [28]. * The payload design is software-configurable in terms of data rates and sensitivity of the receiver on orbit. * The capacity of the proposed network is evaluated through several parameters defined through ground testing results, simulations, and on-orbit results. * It fosters the involvement of 11 mostly developing countries while promoting capacity-building in space activities within these countries. * The GST design is open source for any country that aspires to be part of this SIoT mission. This paper is made of five sections. Section 2 outlines the satellite mission concept and the definition of capacity in terms of the satellite design. It also includes details of the hardware design for both satellite payload and ground segment including design considerations that were made to be hosted in a CubeSat platform. Section 3 defines the parameters that are used to assess the capacity of the mission through various tests such as receiver-sensitivity tests and antenna-radiation pattern tests, in addition to estimations for parameters such as communication time between the satellite and GST. The parameters derived in Section 3 are used to quantify the capacity and coverage of the proposed SIoT system in Section 4, and the overall study is concluded in Section 5.