International Journal of Informatics and Communication Technology (IJ-ICT) Vol. 11, No. 3, December 2022, pp. 206~217 ISSN: 2252-8776, DOI: 10.11591/ijict.v11i3.pp206-217  206 Journal homepage: http://ijict.iaescore.com Satellite dish antenna control for distributed mobile telemedicine nodes Bonaventure Onyeka Ekengwu 1 , Paulinus Chinaenye Eze 2,3 , Christopher Nnaemeka Asiegbu 1 , Samuel Chukwuemeka Olisa 1 , Chimezie Felix Udechukwu 1 1 Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nsukka, Nigeria 2 Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Federal University of Technology Owerri, Owerri, Nigeria 3 Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Covenant Polytechnic, Aba, Nigeria Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Jan 10, 2022 Revised Jul 21, 2022 Accepted Aug 8, 2022 The positioning control of a dish antenna mounted on distributed mobile telemedicine nodes (DMTNs) within Nigeria communicating via NigComSat-1R has been presented. It was desired to improve the transient and steady performance of satellite dish antenna and reduce the effect of delay during satellite communication. In order to overcome this, the equations describing the dynamics of the antenna positioning system were obtained and transformed into state space variable equations. A full state feedback controller was developed with forward path gain and an observer. The proposed controller was introduced into the closed loop of the dish antenna positioning control system. The system was subjected to unit step forcing function in MATLAB/Simulink simulation environment considering three different cases so as to obtain time domain parameters that characterized the transient and steady state response performances. The simulation results obtained revealed that the introduction of the full state feedback controller provided improved position tracking to unit step input with a rise time of 0.42 s, settling time of 1.22 s and overshoot of 4.91%. With the addition of observer, the rise time achieved was 0.39 s, settling time of 1.31 s, and overshoot of 10.7%. The time domain performance comparison of the proposed system with existing systems revealed its superiority over them. Keywords: Controller Full state feedback NigComSat-1R Telemedicine Telemedicine nodes This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Paulinus Chinaenye Eze Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Federal University of Technology Owerri PMB, Owerri, Ihiagwa, 460114 Nigeria Email: paulinuseze1@gmail.com 1. INTRODUCTION Satellite antennas are essential components of mobile telecommunication systems. Large amount of data representing telephone traffic, radio signals, and television signals are carried by satellites. The application of satellite has become increasingly common and an integral part of everyday life as can be seen in many homes and offices with various forms of antennas that are employed for receiving signal from satellites located far distance away from the earth [1]. Satelllite communications certainly offer the most vital technology that enables communication without selecting location and time [2]. Communication via satellite has become a famous process in all field of human endeavour including health sector, where distributed mobile telemedicine nodes (DMTNs) communicating via satellite are used to provide remote healthcare delivery. The DMTNs are communicating dish antenna networks. Telemedicine simply means the the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to provide healthcare delivery