Generalized multicast multibeam precoding for satellite communications

This paper deals with the problem of precoding in multibeam satellite systems. In contrast to general multiuser multiple-input-multiple-output cellular schemes, multibeam satellite architectures suffer from different challenges. First, satellite communications standards embed more than one user in each frame in order to increase the channel coding gain. This leads to the different so-called multigroup multicast models, whose optimization requires computationally complex operations. Second, when the data traffic is generated by several Earth stations (gateways), the precoding matrix must be distributively computed and meet additional payload restrictions. Third, since the feedback channel is adverse (large delay and quantization errors), the precoding must be able to deal with such uncertainties. In order to solve the aforementioned problems, we propose a two-stage precoding design in order to both limit the multibeam interference and to enhance the intra-beam minimum user signal power (i.e., the one that dictates the rate allocation per beam). A robust version of the proposed precoder based on a first perturbation model is presented. This mechanism behaves well when the channel state information is corrupted. Furthermore, we propose a per beam user grouping mechanism together with its robust version in order to increase the precoding gain. Finally, a method for dealing with the multiple gateway architecture is presented, which offers high throughputs with a low inter-gateway communication. The conceived designs are evaluated with a close-to-real beam pattern and the latest broadband communication standard for satellite communications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (updated version

User Scheduling for Precoded Satellite Systems with Individual Quality of Service Constraints

Multibeam high throughput satellite (MB-HTS) systems will play a key role in delivering broadband services to a large number of users with diverse Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. This paper focuses on MB-HTS where the same spectrum is re-used by all user links and, in particular, we propose a novel user scheduling design capable to provide guarantees in terms of individual QoS requirements while maximizing the system throughput. This is achieved by precoding to mitigate mutual interference. The combinatorial optimization structure requires an extremely high cost to obtain the global optimum even with a reduced number of users. We, therefore, propose a heuristic algorithm yielding a good local solution and tolerable computational complexity, applicable for large-scale networks. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm on scheduling many users with better sum throughput than the other benchmarks. Besides, the QoS requirements for all scheduled users are guaranteed.Comment: 6 pages,2 figures, Accepted to present at PIMRC 202

Rate-Splitting Multiple Access for Multibeam Satellite Communications

This paper studies the beamforming design problem to achieve max-min fairness (MMF) in multibeam satellite communications. Contrary to the conventional linear precoding (NoRS) that relies on fully treating any residual interference as noise, we consider a novel multibeam multicast beamforming strategy based on Rate-Splitting Multiple Access (RSMA). RSMA relies on linearly precoded ratesplitting (RS) at the transmitter and Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) at receivers to enable a flexible framework for non-orthogonal transmission and robust interbeam interference management. Aiming at achieving MMF among multiple co-channel multicast beams, a per-feed available power constrained optimization problem is formulated with different quality of channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). The superiority of RS for multigroup multicast and multibeam satellite communication systems compared with conventional scheme (NoRS) is demonstrated via simulations

Total and Minimum Energy Efficiency Tradeoff in Robust Multigroup Multicast Satellite Communications

Data Availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions of the study are presented in the paper.Copyright © 2023 Bin Jiang et al. Satellite communication is an indispensable part of future wireless communications given its global coverage and long-distance propagation. In satellite communication systems, channel acquisition and energy consumption are two critical issues. To this end, we investigate the tradeoff between the total energy efficiency (TEE) and minimum EE (MEE) for robust multigroup multicast satellite communication systems in this paper. Specifically, under the total power constraint, we investigate the robust beamforming aimed at balancing the TEE-MEE, so as to achieve the balance between the fairness and total performance on the system EE. For this optimization problem, we first model the balancing problem as a nonconvex problem while deriving its approximate closed-form average user rate. Then, the nonconvex problem is handled by solving convex programs sequentially with the help of the semidefinite relaxation and the concave-convex procedure. In addition, depending on the solution rank value, Gaussian randomization and eigenvalue decomposition method are applied to generate the feasible solutions. Finally, simulation results illustrate that the proposed approach can effectively achieve the balance between the TEE and MEE, thus realizing a tradeoff between fairness and system EE performance. It is also indicated that the proposed robust approach outperforms the conventional baselines in terms of EE performance.This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62341110, the Key Technologies R&D Program of Jiangsu (Prospective and Key Technologies for Industry) under Grants BE2022067 and BE2022067-5, the Jiangsu Province Basic Research Project under Grant BK20192002, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grants 2242021R41148 and 2242022k60007, and the Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program by China Institute of Communications. The work of J.Z. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant U2233216