Impact of Doppler Effect on Testing LEO Satellite Tracking Antenna Using Static Motion Platform

The demand for reliable satellite communication on moving platforms has grown considerably, becoming a critical topic for ensuring stable connectivity via Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites to vehicles such as boats, airplanes, and cars. To meet these needs, a variety of ground-based technologies with tracking capabilities are being developed. Before deploying these terminals on actual vehicles, it is essential to test their performance using motion simulators, such as hexapod motion platform. Although these platforms offer significant freedom of rotation in all directions, they are limited in terms of linear translation, making it difficult to emulate the linear velocities of moving vehicles, which directly influence the Doppler effect. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the Doppler effect for moving vehicles compared to static users and analyze whether the additional Doppler shift caused by vehicle motion needs to be compensated for, in addition to the natural Doppler shift from the satellite's movement.