NOMA-Enabled Multi-Beam Satellite Systems: Joint Optimization to Overcome Offered-Requested Data Mismatches

in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (2021), 70(1), 900-913

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has potentials to improve the performance of multi-beam satellite systems. The performance optimization in satellite-NOMA systems could be different from that in ... [more ▼]

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has potentials to improve the performance of multi-beam satellite systems. The performance optimization in satellite-NOMA systems could be different from that in terrestrial-NOMA systems, e.g., considering distinctive channel models, performance metrics, power constraints, and limited flexibility in resource management. In this paper, we adopt a metric, offered capacity to requested traffic ratio (OCTR), to measure the requested-offered data rate mismatch in multi-beam satellite systems. In the considered system, NOMA is applied to mitigate intra-beam interference while precoding is implemented to reduce inter-beam interference. We jointly optimize power, decoding orders, and terminal-timeslot assignment to improve the max-min fairness of OCTR. The problem is inherently difficult due to the presence of combinatorial and non-convex aspects. We first fix the terminal-timeslot assignment, and develop an optimal fast-convergence algorithmic framework based on Perron-Frobenius theory (PF) for the remaining joint power-allocation and decoding-order optimization problem. Under this framework, we propose a heuristic algorithm for the original problem, which iteratively updates the terminal-timeslot assignment and improves the overall OCTR performance. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm improves the max-min OCTR by 40.2% over orthogonal multiple access (OMA) in average. [less ▲]

Satellite Communications in the New Space Era: A Survey and Future Challenges

in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (2021), 23(1), 70-109

Satellite communications (SatComs) have recently entered a period of renewed interest motivated by technological advances and nurtured through private investment and ventures. The present survey aims at ... [more ▼]

Satellite communications (SatComs) have recently entered a period of renewed interest motivated by technological advances and nurtured through private investment and ventures. The present survey aims at capturing the state of the art in SatComs, while highlighting the most promising open research topics. Firstly, the main innovation drivers are motivated, such as new constellation types, on-board processing capabilities, nonterrestrial networks and space-based data collection/processing. Secondly, the most promising applications are described i.e. 5G integration, space communications, Earth observation, aeronautical and maritime tracking and communication. Subsequently, an in-depth literature review is provided across five axes: i) system aspects, ii) air interface, iii) medium access, iv) networking, v) testbeds & prototyping. Finally, a number of future challenges and the respective open research topics are described. [less ▲]

Precoding with Received-Interference Power Control for Multibeam Satellite Communication Systems

in Frontiers in Space Technologies (2021)

Zero-Forcing (ZF) and Regularized Zero-Forcing (RZF) precoding are low-complexity sub-optimal solutions widely accepted in the satellite communications community to mitigate the resulting co-channel ... [more ▼]

Zero-Forcing (ZF) and Regularized Zero-Forcing (RZF) precoding are low-complexity sub-optimal solutions widely accepted in the satellite communications community to mitigate the resulting co-channel interference caused by aggressive frequency reuse. However, both are sensitive to the conditioning of the channel matrix, which can greatly reduce the achievable gains. This paper brings the attention to the benefits of a design that allows some residual received interference power at the co-channel users. The motivation behind this approach is to relax the dependence on the matrix inversion procedure involved in conventional precoding schemes. In particular, the proposed scheme aims to be less sensitive to the user scheduling, which is one of the key limiting factors for the practical implementation of precoding. Furthermore, the proposed technique can also cope with more users than satellite beams. In fact, the proposed precoder can be tuned to control the interference towards the co-channel beams, which is a desirable feature that is not met by the existing RZF solutions. The design is formulated as a non-convex optimization and we study various algorithms in order to obtain a practical solution. Supporting results based on numerical simulations show that the proposed precoding implementations are able to outperform the conventional ZF and RZF schemes. [less ▲]

Demand-based Scheduling for Precoded Multibeam High-Throughput Satellite Systems

in IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), March 2021 (2021)

Scheduling Design and Performance Analysis of Carrier Aggregation in Satellite Communication Systems

in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (2021)

Carrier Aggregation is one of the vital approaches to achieve several orders of magnitude increase in peak data rates. While carrier aggregation benefits have been extensively studied in cellular networks ... [more ▼]

Carrier Aggregation is one of the vital approaches to achieve several orders of magnitude increase in peak data rates. While carrier aggregation benefits have been extensively studied in cellular networks, its application to satellite systems has not been thoroughly explored yet. Carrier aggregation can offer an enhanced and more consistent quality of service for users throughout the satellite coverage via combining multiple carriers, utilizing the unused capacity at other carriers, and enabling effective interference management. Furthermore, carrier aggregation can be a prominent solution to address the issue of the spatially heterogeneous satellite traffic demand. This paper investigates introducing carrier aggregation to satellite systems from a link layer perspective. Deployment of carrier aggregation in satellite systems with the combination of multiple carriers that have different characteristics requires effective scheduling schemes for reliable communications. To this end, a novel load balancing scheduling algorithm has been proposed to distribute data packets across the aggregated carriers based on channel capacities and to utilize spectrum efficiently. Moreover, in order to ensure that the received data packets are delivered without perturbing the original transmission order, a perceptive scheduling algorithm has been developed that takes into consideration channel properties along with the instantaneous available resources at the aggregated carriers. The proposed modifications have been carefully designed to make carrier aggregation transparent above the medium access control (MAC) layer. Additionally, the complexity analysis of the proposed algorithms has been conducted in terms of the computational loads. Simulation results are provided to validate our analysis, demonstrate the design tradeoffs, and to highlight the potentials of carrier aggregation applied to satellite communication systems. [less ▲]

Precoded Cluster Hopping for Multibeam GEO Satellite Communication Systems

in Frontiers in Signal Processing (2021)

Power and Bandwidth Minimization for Demand-Aware GEO Satellite Systems

Scientific Conference (2021)

Smart radio resource allocation combined with the recent advances of digital payloads will allow to control the transmit power and bandwidth of the satellites depending on the demand and the channel ... [more ▼]

Smart radio resource allocation combined with the recent advances of digital payloads will allow to control the transmit power and bandwidth of the satellites depending on the demand and the channel conditions of users. The system flexibility is important not only to handle divergent demand requirements but also to efficiently utilize the limited and expensive satellite resources. In this paper, we propose a demand-aware smart radio resource allocation technique, where the transmit power and the bandwidth of the GEO satellite are minimized while satisfying the user demand. The formulated optimization problem is non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear program which is difficult to solve. Hence, we apply a quadratic transform to solve the problem iteratively. The numerical results showed that the proposed scheme outperforms the benchmark schemes in terms of bandwidth utilization while accurately providing capacity-ondemand. [less ▲]

Demand-Aware Beam Design and User Scheduling for Precoded Multibeam GEO Satellite Systems

in 25th International ITG Workshop on Smart Antennas (WSA 2021) (2021)

For many years, satellite footprints have been fixed from the design phase until the last day of the satellite operational life. Flexibility in coverage by means of reconfigurable beams is becoming ... [more ▼]

For many years, satellite footprints have been fixed from the design phase until the last day of the satellite operational life. Flexibility in coverage by means of reconfigurable beams is becoming increasingly popular thanks to the recent developments in active antenna systems. On the other hand, spatial frequency reuse combined with precoding has been shown to boost the spectral efficiency while lowering the cost per bit. In this context, and motivated by the unbalanced demand requests of the satellite users, we propose a shift from the traditional system-throughput maximization design towards a demand-Aware design, where a new beam shaping technique and user scheduling are combined to satisfy the users’ demands. Supporting numerical results are provided that validate the effectiveness of the proposed beam planning and scheduling and quantify the benefits over conventional rigid techniques. [less ▲]

A Low-complexity Resource Optimization Technique for High Throughput Satellite

Scientific Conference (2021)

The high throughput satellites with flexible payloads are expected to provide a high data rate to satisfy the increasing traffic demand. Furthermore, the reconfiguration capability of flexible payloads ... [more ▼]

The high throughput satellites with flexible payloads are expected to provide a high data rate to satisfy the increasing traffic demand. Furthermore, the reconfiguration capability of flexible payloads opens the door to more advanced system optimization techniques and a better utilization of satellite resources. Consequently, we can obtain high demand satisfaction at the user side. For this, dynamically adaptive high-performance and low-complexity optimization algorithms are needed. In this paper, we propose a novel low-complexity resource optimization technique for geostationary (GEO) High Throughput Satellites. The proposed method minimizes the transmit power and the overall satellite bandwidth while satisfying the demand per beam. This optimization problem turns out to be non-convex. Hence, we convexify the problem using Dinkelbach method and Successive Convex Approximation (SCA). The simulation result shows that the proposed scheme provides better flexibility in resource allocation and requires less computational time compared to the state-of-art benchmark schemes. [less ▲]

Weighted Sum-SINR and Fairness Optimization for SWIPT-Multigroup Multicasting Systems with Heterogeneous Users

in IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society (2020)

The development of next generation wireless communication systems focuses on the expansion of existing technologies, while ensuring an accord between various devices within a system. In this paper, we ... [more ▼]

The development of next generation wireless communication systems focuses on the expansion of existing technologies, while ensuring an accord between various devices within a system. In this paper, we target the aspect of precoder design for simultaneous wireless information and power transmission (SWIPT) in a multi-group (MG) multicasting (MC) framework capable of handling heterogeneous types of users, viz., information decoding (ID) specific, energy harvesting (EH) explicit, and/or both ID and EH operations concurrently. Precoding is a technique well-known for handling the inter-user interference in multi-user systems, however, the joint design with SWIPT is not yet fully exploited. Herein, we investigate the potential benefits of having a dedicated precoder for the set of users with EH demands, in addition to the MC precoding. We study the system performance of the aforementioned system from the perspectives of weighted sum of signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR) and fairness. In this regard, we formulate the precoder design problems for (i) maximizing the weighted sum of SINRs at the intended users and (ii) maximizing the minimum of SINRs at the intended users; both subject to the constraints on minimum (non-linear) harvested energy, an upper limit on the total transmit power and a minimum SINR required to close the link. We solve the above-mentioned problems using distinct iterative algorithms with the help of semi-definite relaxation (SDR) and slack-variable replacement (SVR) techniques, following suitable transformations pertaining the problem convexification. The main novelty of the proposed approach lies in the ability to jointly design the MC and EH precoders for serving the heterogeneously classified ID and EH users present in distinct groups, respectively. We illustrate the comparison between the proposed weighted sum-SINR and fairness models via simulation results, carried out under various parameter values and operating conditions. [less ▲]