Precoding in multibeam satellite communications: present and future challenges

in jourlib Journal (2015)

Whenever multibeam satellite systems target very aggressive frequency reuse in their coverage area, inter-beam interference becomes the major obstacle for increasing the overall system throughput. As a ... [more ▼]

Whenever multibeam satellite systems target very aggressive frequency reuse in their coverage area, inter-beam interference becomes the major obstacle for increasing the overall system throughput. As a matter of fact, users located at the beam edges suffer from a very large interference for even a moderately aggressive planning of reuse-2. Although solutions for inter-beam interference management have been investigated at the satellite terminal, it turns out that the performance improvement does not justify the increased terminal complexity and cost. In this article, we pay attention to interference mitigation techniques that take place at the transmitter (i.e. the gateway). Based on this understanding, we provide our vision on advanced precoding techniques and user clustering methods for multibeam broadband fixed satellite communications. We also discuss practical challenges to deploy precoding schemes and the support introduced in the recently published DVB-S2X standard. Future challenges for novel configurations employing precoding are also provided. [less ▲]

Multiple Gateway Transmit Diversity in Q/V Band Feeder Links

in IEEE Transactions on Communications (2015)

Design of high bandwidth and reliable feeder links is central towards provisioning new services on the user link of a multibeam satellite communication (SatCom) system. Towards this, utilization of the Q ... [more ▼]

Design of high bandwidth and reliable feeder links is central towards provisioning new services on the user link of a multibeam satellite communication (SatCom) system. Towards this, utilization of the Q/V band and an exploitation of multiple gateways (GW) as a transmit diversity measure for overcoming severe propagation effects are being considered. In this context, this contribution deals with the design of a feeder link comprising N + P GWs (N active and P redundant GWs). Towards provisioning the desired availability, a novel switching scheme is analysed and practical aspects such as prediction based switching and switching rate are discussed. Unlike most relevant works, a dynamic rain attenuation model is used to derive analytically average outage probability in the fundamental 1 + 1 gateway case. Building on this result, an analysis for the N +P scenario leading to a quantification of the end􀀀to􀀀end performance is provided. This analysis aids system sizing by illustrating the interplay between the number of active and redundant gateways on the chosen metrics : average outage and average switching rate. [less ▲]