Satellite networks offer connectivity beyond the reach of terrestrial infrastructure, but translating broad coverage into scalable service requires addressing bottlenecks across the ground segment, device access, and terrestrial backhaul. Ground stations must provide capacity for growing constellations, thousands of low-power devices must share a satellite receiver despite being unable to sense one another, and satellite and terrestrial links must coexist in partially overlapping spectrum. Conventional approaches often address these constraints through additional antenna hardware, restrictive access protocols, or spectrum separation, limiting efficiency and practical deployment. This talk presents systems that address these challenges by separating resources and controls that conventional architectures couple. At the ground station, ArrayLink exploits near-field geometry across distributed commercial phased-array panels to support parallel spatial streams, while TrackLink separates slow analog pointing from fast digital phase prediction to preserve coherence under satellite motion. For satellite IoT, FSMA uses a lightweight gateway signal to coordinate channel access and filter weak links, reducing collisions and wasted device energy. For backhaul and coexistence, mmSubArray assigns frequency sub-bands to separate commercial arrays, enabling useful links and interference suppression in different directions while retaining the overlapping spectrum. Drawing on hardware experiments, prototype demonstrations, and satellite-scale simulations, the talk examines the capabilities and limitations of these approaches and shows how distributed geometry, adaptive control, and receiver processing can advance satellite connectivity using existing hardware.
Dinesh Bharadia is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Klein Gilhousen Chancellor’s Endowed Chair at the University of California San Diego, where he leads the Wireless Communication, Sensing, and Networking Group (WCSNG). He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2016 and subsequently served as a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT. He joined UC San Diego in 2018 and received tenure in 2022. His research focuses on designing and prototyping practical systems for wireless communication, sensing, computing, and networking. His work connects fundamental advances in communication theory and signal processing with hardware and system design, with applications spanning connectivity, robotics, healthcare, privacy, and security. His recent research explores scalable satellite connectivity, energy-efficient wireless architectures, and real-time network intelligence. His innovations have contributed to commercial efforts including Kumu Networks, Haila, and Totemic Labs. His contributions have been recognized through Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science, MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35, the Marconi Young Scholar Award, and the Michael Dukakis Leadership Award. He is also a recipient of IIT Kanpur’s Young Alumni Award.