Precoded Cluster Hopping in Multi-Beam High Throughput Satellite Systems

Beam-Hopping (BH) and precoding are two trending technologies for the satellite community. While BH enables flexibility to adapt the offered capacity to the heterogeneous demand, precoding aims at boosting the spectral efficiency. In this paper, we consider a high throughput satellite (HTS) system that employs BH in conjunction with precoding. In particular, we propose the concept of Cluster-Hopping (CH) that seamlessly combines the BH and precoding paradigms and utilize their individual competencies. The cluster is defined as a set of adjacent beams that are simultaneously illuminated. In addition, we propose an efficient time-space illumination pattern design, where we determine the set of clusters that can be illuminated simultaneously at each hopping event along with the illumination duration. We model the CH time-space illumination pattern design as an integer programming problem which can be efficiently solved. Supporting results based on numerical simulations are provided which validate the effectiveness of the proposed CH concept and time-space illumination pattern design

Advanced Symbol-level Precoding Schemes for Interference Exploitation in Multi-antenna Multi-user Wireless Communications

The utilization of multi-antenna transmitters relying on full frequency reuse has proven to be an effective strategy towards fulfilling the constantly increasing throughput requirements of wireless communication systems. As a consequence, in the last two decades precoding has been a prolific research area, due to its ability to handle the interference arising among simultaneous transmissions addressed to different co-channel users. The conventional precoding strategies aim at mitigating the multi-user interference (MUI) by exploiting the knowledge of the channel state information (CSI). More recently, novel approaches have been proposed where the aim is not to eliminate the interference, but rather to control it so as to achieve a constructive interference effect at each receiver. In these schemes, referred to as symbol-level precoding (SLP), the data information (data symbols) is used together with the CSI in the precoding design, which can be addressed following several optimization strategies. In the context of SLP, the work carried out in this thesis is mainly focused on developing more advanced optimization strategies suitable to non-linear systems, where the per-antenna high-power amplifiers introduce an amplitude and phase distortion on the transmitted signals. More specifically, the main objective is to exploit the potential of SLP not only to achieve the constructive interference at the receivers, but also to control the per-antenna instantaneous transmit power, improving the power dynamics of the transmitted waveforms. In fact, a reduction of the power variation of the signals, both in the spatial dimension (across the different antennas) and in the temporal dimension, is particularly important for mitigating the non-linear effects. After a detailed review of the state of the art of SLP, the first part of the thesis is focused on improving the power dynamics of the transmitted signals in the spatial dimension, by reducing the instantaneous power imbalances across the different antennas. First, a SLP per-antenna power minimization scheme is presented, followed by a related max-min fair formulation with per-antenna power constraints. These approaches allow to reduce the power peaks of the signals across the antennas. Next, more advanced SLP schemes are formulated and solved, with the objective of further improving the spatial dynamics of the signals. Specifically, a first approach performs a peak power minimization under a lower bound constraint on the per-antenna transmit power, while a second strategy minimizes the spatial peak-to-average power ratio. The second part of this thesis is devoted to developing a novel SLP method, referred to as spatio-temporal SLP, where the temporal variation of the transmit power is also considered in the SLP optimization. This new model allows to minimize the peak-to-average power ratio of the transmitted waveforms both in the spatial and in the temporal dimensions, thus further improving the robustness of the signals to non-linear effects. Then, this thesis takes one step further, by exploiting the developed spatio-temporal SLP model in a different context. In particular, a spatio-temporal SLP scheme is proposed which enables faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) signaling over multi-user systems, by constructively handling at the transmitter side not only the MUI but also the inter-symbol interference (ISI). This strategy allows to benefit from the increased throughput provided by FTN signaling without imposing additional complexity at the user terminals. Extensive numerical results are presented throughout the thesis, in order to assess the performance of the proposed schemes with respect to the state of the art in SLP. The thesis concludes summarizing the main research findings and identifying the open problems, which will constitute the basis for the future work

Carrier Aggregation in Multi-Beam High Throughput Satellite Systems

Carrier Aggregation (CA) is an integral part of current terrestrial networks. Its ability to enhance the peak data rate, to efficiently utilize the limited available spectrum resources and to satisfy the demand for data-hungry applications has drawn large attention from different wireless network communities. Given the benefits of CA in the terrestrial wireless environment, it is of great interest to analyze and evaluate the potential impact of CA in the satellite domain. In this paper, we study CA in multibeam high throughput satellite systems. We consider both inter-transponder and intra-transponder CA at the satellite payload level of the communication stack, and we address the problem of carrier-user assignment assuming that multiple users can be multiplexed in each carrier. The transmission parameters of different carriers are generated considering the transmission characteristics of carriers in different transponders. In particular, we propose a flexible carrier allocation approach for a CA-enabled multibeam satellite system targeting a proportionally fair user demand satisfaction. Simulation results and analysis shed some light on this rather unexplored scenario and demonstrate the feasibility of the CA in satellite communication systems

'Faster-than-Nyquist Signaling via Spatiotemporal Symbol-Level Precoding for Multi-User MISO Redundant Transmissions

This paper tackles the problem of both multi-user and intersymbol interference stemming from co-channel users transmitting at a faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) rate in multi-antenna downlink transmissions. We propose a framework for redundant block-based symbol-level precoders enabling the trade-off between constructive and destructive multi-user and interblock interference (IBI) effects at the single-antenna user terminals. Redundant elements are added as guard interval to handle IBI destructive effects. It is shown that, within this framework, accelerating the transmissions via FTN signaling improves the error-free spectral efficiency, up to a certain acceleration factor beyond which the transmitted information cannot be perfectly recovered by linear filtering followed by sampling. Simulation results corroborate that the proposed spatiotemporal symbol-level precoding can change the amount of added redundancy from zero (full IBI) to half (IBI-free) the equivalent channel order, so as to achieve a target balance between spectral and energy efficiencies

Precoded Cluster Hopping in Multi-Beam High Throughput Satellite Systems

Beam-Hopping (BH) and precoding are two trending technologies for the satellite community. While BH enables flexibility to adapt the offered capacity to the heterogeneous demand, precoding aims at boosting the spectral efficiency. In this paper, we consider a high throughput satellite (HTS) system that employs BH in conjunction with precoding. In particular, we propose the concept of Cluster-Hopping (CH) that seamlessly combines the BH and precoding paradigms and utilizes their individual competencies. The cluster is defined as a set of adjacent beams that are simultaneously illuminated. In addition, we propose an efficient time-space illumination pattern design, where we determine the set of clusters that can be illuminated simultaneously at each hopping event along with the illumination duration. We model the CH time-space illumination pattern design as an integer programming problem which can be efficiently solved. Supporting results based on numerical simulations are provided which validate the effectiveness of the proposed CH concept and time-space illumination pattern design

Sequential spatio-temporal symbol-level precoding enabling faster-than-Nyquist signaling for multi-user MISO systems

This paper addresses the problem of the interference between multiple co-channel transmissions in the downlink of a multi-antenna wireless system. In this context, symbol-level precoding achieves a constructive interference effect which results in SINR gains at the receivers side. Usually the constructive interference is exploited in the spatial dimension (multi-user interference), however in this work we consider a spatio-temporal precoding model which allows to exploit the interference also in the temporal dimension (inter-symbol interference). The proposed method, which optimizes the overs ampled transmit waveforms by minimizing the per-antenna transmit power, allows faster-than-Nyquist signaling over multi-user MISO systems without imposing additional complexity at the user terminals. The optimization is performed in a sequential fashion, by splitting the data streams in blocks and handling the inter-block interference. Numerical results are presented to assess the gains of the scheme in terms of effective rate and energy efficiency

Carrier Aggregation in Multi-Beam High Throughput Satellite Systems

Carrier Aggregation (CA) is an integral part of current terrestrial networks. Its ability to enhance the peak data rate, to efficiently utilize the limited available spectrum resources and to satisfy the demand for data-hungry applications has drawn large attention from different wireless network communities. Given the benefits of CA in the terrestrial wireless environment, it is of great interest to analyze and evaluate the potential impact of CA in the satellite domain. In this paper, we study CA in multi-beam high throughput satellite systems. We consider both inter-transponder and intra-transponder CA at the satellite payload level of the communication stack, and we address the problem of carrier-user assignment assuming that multiple users can be multiplexed in each carrier. The transmission parameters of different carriers are generated considering the transmission characteristics of carriers in different transponders. In particular, we propose a flexible carrier allocation approach for a CA enabled multi-beam satellite system targeting a proportionally fair user demand satisfaction. Simulation results and analysis shed some light on this rather unexplored scenario and demonstrate the feasibility of the CA in satellite communication systems

Symbol-Level Precoding with Per-antenna Power Constraints for the Multi-beam Satellite Downlink

This paper tackles the problem of multi-user interference in the forward downlink channel of a multi-beam satellite system. A symbol-level precoding scheme is considered, where the data information is used, along with the channel state information, in order to exploit the multi-user interference and transform it into useful power at the receiver side. In this framework, the max-min fair problem for constructive interference is formulated and solved, under per-antenna power constraints. The consideration of the power limitations individually for each transmitting RF chain is the novel aspect, and it is relevant in particular for systems suffering non-linear effects of the channel. This is the case of satellite systems, where the non-linear amplifiers should be properly driven in order to reduce the detrimental saturation effect. The proposed precoding design optimizes the system performance at the receiver side in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, whilst guaranteeing the system fairness and allowing a control over the power transmitted by each antenna, in particular reducing the power peaks. Numerical results are presented to validate the proposed scheme, and to show its effectiveness in terms of distribution of the transmitted power and peak-to-average power ratio

Symbol-level Precoding for the Non-linear Multiuser MISO Downlink Channel

This paper investigates the problem of the interference among multiple simultaneous transmissions in the downlink channel of a multi-antenna wireless system. A symbol-level precoding scheme is considered, in order to exploit the multi-user interference and transform it into useful power at the receiver side, through a joint utilization of the data information and the channel state information. In this context, this paper presents novel strategies which exploit the potential of symbol-level precoding to control the per-antenna instantaneous transmit power. In particular, the power peaks amongst the transmitting antennas and the instantaneous power imbalances across the different transmitted streams are minimized. These objectives are particularly relevant with respect to the non-linear amplitude and phase distortions induced by the per-antenna amplifiers, which are important sources of performance degradation in practical systems. More specifically, this work proposes two different symbol-level precoding approaches. A first approach performs a weighted per-antenna power minimization, under Quality-of-Service constraints and under a lower bound constraint on the per-antenna transmit power. A second strategy performs a minimization of the spatial peak-to-average power ratio, evaluated amongst the transmitting antennas. Numerical results are presented in a comparative fashion to show the effectiveness of the proposed techniques, which outperform the state of the art symbol-level precoding schemes in terms of spatial peak-to-average power ratio, spatial dynamic range, and symbol-error-rate over non-linear channels