Kinéis relies on a network of partners for the design, development, production and distribution of Kinéis-connected devices, able to communicate with the satellites passing overhead, which then forward these data to the stations on the ground to be processed at Kinéis’ service center and eventually delivered to the user.

Below is shown the architecture of the Kinéis infrastructure:

The Kinéis connectivity is provided to the devices thanks to the following infrastructure:

• a constellation of satellites, collecting data from all over the world
• a network of ground stations, strategically located over the planet to retrieve the information collected by the satellites
• a Mission center and a Control center, processing and managing all flows of information
• a Service center, providing the final service to the user

Satellite constellation

Kinéis connectivity relies on a constellation of polar low-earth orbit satellites, which means they provide true global coverage. From just a few hundreds of kilometers above our heads, they receive the signals from any connected devices.

Today: the operational Argos satellites

Today, Kinéis is fully operational with the Argos payloads, hosted on our partners’ satellites inherited from the historical Argos system, which already enable anyone to collect up to several messages per day from any device on the planet.

Please refer to Kinéis services ramp-up to discover the satellites that are currently operational.

Tomorrow: 25 Kinéis nanosatellites

In 2023, a new constellation of 25 dedicated nanosatellites will be launched to offer enhanced coverage performances and achieve a near real-time connectivity.

Ground stations

Back on Earth, Kinéis operates a network of ground stations distributed all around the globe to receive the signals collected and forwarded by the satellites. This way, each satellite is assured to find an available ground station on its way, right after having collected data from a device.

What is a ground station?

A ground station is a ground infrastructure, mainly composed of one or several radio-communication antennas, controlled by an IT bay. 

The ground station is able to track and to communicate with the satellites when they pass above. A network of ground stations is thus deployed to retrieve all the data collected by the satellites and to forward it to the Mission center.

The ground station is also used to transmit information from the ground to the satellite, such as messages for a device (acknowledgement message, end user command), monitoring information for broadcasting (orbital parameters, local time and satellites status) and also operational instructions for the satellites.

Argos ground stations network

Today, nearly 60 Argos ground stations receive data from the Argos satellites. Argos ground stations can be distinguished depending on these capabilities:

• Ability to receive data in real time when the devices are simultaneously in visibility of the satellite, called real-time ground stations
• Ability to receive data collected and stored in memory by the satellite while out of visibility, called global or differed-time ground stations

The current Argos ground station network consist of 50 real-time stations and 6 differed-time stations:

Kinéis ground stations network

In 2023, the Kinéis ground segment will be composed of 19 new ground stations homogeneously distributed around the globe. The locations and infrastructure of the ground stations will be optimized to reduce the latency between the data collection by the satellite and the distribution to the Kinéis Mission center: all 19 stations will have both the real-time and differed-time abilities.

IT infrastructure

The Kinéis IT infrastructure is hosted by Cegedim.cloud, a cloud expert in hosting and managing mission-critical platforms, and is divided in a Mission center, a Control center and a Service center.

Mission center

The Mission center centralizes incoming data from all the Kinéis system. For instance, once the data from the satellites is downloaded to the ground stations, it is routed to the Mission center, where the data coming from the user devices (known as "device telemetry") is sorted out and delivered to the Service center. The Mission center also manages the link between the Control center and the base stations, necessary for the satellite operations.

Control center

The Control center is in charge of the satellite constellation operational management. It computes operational commands, which are sent to the satellites via the Mission center and the ground stations, and receives the satellite operational status via the same link.

Service center

The Service center is an IT structure dedicated to the user data and user requests management.

User data management

At the service center, Kinéis sorts out the useful data, corrects the errors, performs the computation of Doppler-based locations and finally distributes the data to the corresponding user. A web interface is made available to the user for subscription management, service settings, and configuration of the data retrieval strategy through standard API: the Kinéis Services Portal.

User requests management

The user requests are translated into commands for the device by the Service center and sent to the Mission center, which communicates them to the ground stations before they are sent to the satellites and finally delivered to the connected device.