Advances on Multi-Transmission Reception Point over Non-Terrestrial Networks for 6G

This paper explores user connectivity at the periphery of satellite beams, focusing on Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs) that may exhibit varying velocities. All beams providing coverage operate within the same frequency band, leading to the adoption of the multi-transmission reception point strategy (mTRP) to serve these users. Under this strategy, the User Equipment (UE) is concurrently linked to multiple New Radio (NR) nodes transmitting identical information. In our investigation, a UE is connected to two Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites, and we assess the performance of the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) in 5G-NR under this configuration. With both satellites transmitting the same packet, the probability of coverage outage due to UE mobility is reduced, as the UE transitions between the outer coverage areas of the two satellites. To enhance UE connectivity and minimize handovers, a packet duplication strategy is employed with the mTRP framework. Pre-coding techniques are utilized by both GEO satellites to mitigate channel effects, with each satellite adhering to a non-coherent mTRP strategy, meaning each channel retains only its own information. Simulation results are presented, and the implications of the findings are discussed.