Mobile Satellite Broadcast and Multichannel Communications Analysis and Design

In this thesis, analytical analysis and design techniques for wireless communications with diversity are studied. The impact of impairments such as correlated fading is analyzed using statistical models. Countermeasures designed to overcome, or even exploit, such effects are proposed and examined. In particular two applications are considered, satellite broadcast to vehicular terminals and communication using transmitters and receivers equipped with multiple antennas.
Mobile satellite broadcast systems offer the possibility of high data rate services with reliability and ubiquitous coverage. The design of sys- tem architectures providing such services requires complex trade-offs involving technical, economical, and regulatory aspects. A satisfactory availability can be ensured using space, terrestrial, and time diversity techniques. The amount of applied diversity affects the spectral efficiency and system performance. Also, dedicated satellite and terrestrial networks represent significant investments and regulatory limitations may further complicate system design.
The work presented in this thesis provides insights to the technical aspects of the trade-offs above. This is done by deriving an efficient method for estimating what resources in terms of spectrum and delay are required for a broadcast service to reach a satisfactory number of end users using a well designed system. The results are based on statistical models of the mobile satellite channel for which efficient analytical design and error rate estimation methods are derived. We also provide insight to the achievable spectral efficiency using different transmitter and receiver configurations.
Multiple-element antenna communication is a promising technology for future high speed wireless infrastructures. By adding a spatial dimension, radio resources in terms of transmission power and spectrum can be used more efficiently. Much of the design and analysis work has focused on cases where the transmitter either has access to perfect channel state information or it is blind and the spatial channels are uncorrelated.
Herein, systems where the fading of the spatial channels is correlated and/or the transmitter has access to partial channel state information are considered. While maintaining perfect channel knowledge at the transmitter may prove difficult, updating parameters that change on a slower time scale could be realistic. Here we formulate analysis and design techniques based on statistical models of the multichannel propagation. Fundamental properties of the multi-element antenna channel and limitations given by information theory are investigated under an asymptotic assumption on the number of antennas on either side of the system. For example, limiting normal distributions are derived for the squared singular values of the channel matrix and the mutual information. We also propose and examine a practical scheme capable of exploiting partial channel state information.
In both applications outlined above, by using statistical models of the channel characteristics in the system design, performance can be improved. The main contribution of this thesis is the development of efficient techniques for estimating the system performance in different scenarios. Such techniques are vital to obtain insights to the impact of different impairments and how countermeasures against these should be designed.