Next Generation High Throughput Satellite System

This paper aims at presenting an overview of the state-of-the-art in High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems for Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) and High Density-FSS. Promising techniques and innovative strategies that can enhance system performance are reviewed and analyzed aiming to show what to expect for next generation ultra-high capacity satellite systems. Potential air interface evolutions, efficient frequency plans,feeder link dimensioning strategies and interference cancellation techniques are presented to show how Terabit/s satellite myth may turn into reality real soon

Impact of Scheduling in the Return-Link of Multi-Beam Satellite MIMO Systems

The utilization of universal frequency reuse in multi-beam satellite systems introduces a non-negligible level of co-channel interference (CCI), which in turn penalizes the quality of service experienced by users. Taking this as starting point, the paper focuses on resource management performed by the gateway (hub) on the return-link, with particular emphasis on a scheduling algorithm based on bipartite graph approach. The study gives important insights into the achievable per-user rate and the role played by the number of users and spot beams considered for scheduling. More interestingly, it is shown that a free-slot assignment strategy helps to exploit the available satellite resources, thus guaranteeing a max-min rate requirement to users. Remarks about the trade-off between efficiency-loss and performance increase are finally drawn at the end of the paper.Comment: Submitted and accepted to IEEE GLOBECOM 2012 Conference, 6 pages, 10 figure

Interference Management and Energy Efficiency in Satellite Communications

The main areas of research of this thesis are Interference Management and Link-Level Power Efficiency for Satellite Communications. The thesis is divided in two parts. Part I tackles the problem of interference environments in satellite communications, and interference mitigation strategies, not just in terms of avoidance of the interferers, but also in terms of actually exploiting the interference present in the system as a useful signal. The analysis follows a top-down approach across different levels of investigation, starting from system level consideration on interference management, down to link-level aspects and to intra-receiver design. Interference Management techniques are proposed at all the levels of investigation, with interesting results. Part II is related to efficiency in the power domain, for instance in terms of required Input Back-off at the power amplifiers, which can be an issue for waveform based on linear modulations, due to their varying envelope. To cope with such aspects, an analysis is carried out to compare linear modulation with waveforms based on constant envelope modulations. It is shown that in some scenarios, constant envelope waveforms, even if at lower spectral efficiency, outperform linear modulation waveform in terms of energy efficiency

On-board beam generation for multibeam satellite systems

This paper aims at designing an onboard beam generation process for a hybrid onboard on-ground multibeam satellite architecture. The proposed method offers a good tradeoff between total throughput and feeder link bandwidth requirements compared with pure on-ground systems. Full frequency reuse among beams is considered, and the beamforming at the satellite is designed for supporting interference mitigation techniques. In addition, in order to reduce the payload cost and complexity, this onboard beamforming is assumed to be constant and the same for forward and return link transmissions so that the same array-fed reflector can be used for forward and return links, leading to a substantial reduction of the payload mass. To meet all these requirements, a novel robust minimum mean square error optimization is conceived. The benefits of the considered scheme are evaluated with respect to the current approaches both analytically and numerically. Indeed, we show that with the DVB-RCS and DVB-S2 standards, our proposal allows increasing the total throughput within a range between 6% and 15% with respect to other onboard processing techniques in the return and forward link, respectively.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Study on the application of NOMA techniques for heterogeneous satellite terminals

This paper addresses the application of nonorthogonal multiple-access techniques (NOMA) to those satellite relayed communications for which a significant imbalance in the link quality of user terminals can be expected. The Signal-to-Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) imbalance could be caused by the coexistence of different types of terminals, possibly with different antenna sizes, and offering different classes of service. This link SINR asymmetry can be exploited to outperform orthogonal access schemes under different rate metrics, paying special attention to fairness in the service provision. Both forward and asynchronous return link are addressed, with minimum signaling information and emphasis on some relevant implementation issues such as framing and synchronization

Distributed precoding systems in multi-gateway multibeam satellites: regularization and coarse beamforming

This paper deals with the problem of beamforming design in a multibeam satellite, which is shared by different groups of terminals -clusters-, each served by an Earth station or gateway. Each gateway precodes the symbols addressed to its respective users; the design follows an MMSE criterion, and a regularization factor judiciously chosen allows to account for the presence of mutually interfering clusters, extending more classical results applicable to one centralized station. More importantly, channel statistics can be used instead of instantaneous channel state information, avoiding the exchange of information among gateways through backhaul links. The on-board satellite beamforming weights are designed to exploit the degrees of freedom of the satellite antennas to minimize the noise impact and the interference to some specific users. On-ground beamforming results are provided as a reference to compare the joint performance of MMSE precoders and on-board beamforming network.Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. TEC2016-76409-C2-2-RAgencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. TEC2016-75103-C2-2-RXunta de Galici