End-to-end Signal Processing Algorithms for Precoded Satellite Communications

The benefits of full frequency reuse in satellite communications consist of increased spectral efficiency, physical layer security, enhanced coverage, and improved Quality of Service. This is possible due to novel digital signal processing techniques for interference mitigation as well as signal predistortion in non-linear high-performance amplifiers. Advanced linear precoding and symbol-level precoding can jointly address the signal processing demands in the next-generation satellite communications. The real-time signal precoding increases the computational complexity handled at the gateway, thus requiring low-complexity high-performance algorithms to be developed. Additionally, extensive in-lab and field tests are required to increase the technology readiness level and industrial adaption rate. In this thesis, we focus on low-complexity precoding design and in-lab validations. We study the state-of-the-art linear and symbol-level precoding techniques and multi-user MIMO test-beds available in the literature. First, we present a novel low-complexity algorithm for sum power minimization precoding design. This technique allows to reduce transmitted power in a multi-beam satellite system and improves the quality of the received signal at user terminals. Next, we demonstrate an FPGA accelerated high-throughput precoding design. The FPGA precoding design is scalable for a different number of beams in the systems and operates in a real-time processing regime using a commercially available software defined radio platform. One of the highlights of this research is the creation of a real-time in-lab precoding test-bed. The test-bed consists of a DVB-S2X precoding enabled gateway prototype, a MIMO channel emulator, and user terminals. By using the radio frequency for transmitting and receiving the precoded signals, we can test the performance of different precoding techniques in realistic scenarios and channel impairments. We demonstrate an end-to-end symbol-level precoded real-time transmission, in which user terminals can acquire and decode the precoded signals showing an increase in performance and throughput. The in-lab validations confirm numerical results conducted alongside in this work.