Frame Based Precoding in Satellite Communications: A Multicast Approach

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel frame-based precoding method for multibeam satellite communications that manages inter-beam interference under practical constraints, improving throughput by leveraging physical layer multicasting techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a new optimal frame-based precoding approach under per-antenna power constraints, connecting satellite precoding with physical layer multicasting, and demonstrates its performance gains.

Findings

Proposed precoding method enhances throughput in satellite multibeam systems.

Compared to heuristic methods, the new approach shows significant performance improvements.

Numerical results validate the effectiveness of the proposed precoding under realistic scenarios.

Abstract

In the present work, a multibeam satellite that employs aggressive frequency reuse towards increasing the offered throughput is considered. Focusing on the forward link, the goal is to employ multi-antenna signal processing techniques, namely linear precoding, to manage the inter-beam interferences. In this context, fundamental practical limitations, namely the rigid framing structure of satellite communication standards and the on-board per-antenna power constraints, are herein considered. Therefore, the concept of optimal frame based precoding under per-antenna constraints, is discussed. This consists in precoding the transmit signals without changing the underlying framing structure of the communication standard. In the present work, the connection of the frame based precoding problem with the generic signal processing problem of conveying independent sets of common data to distinct groups of users is established. This model is known as physical layer multicasting to multiple co-channel groups. Building on recent results, the weighted fair per-antenna power constrained multigroup multicast precoders are employed for frame based precoding. The throughput performance of these solutions is compared to multicast aware heuristic precoding methods over a realistic multibeam satellite scenario. Consequently, the gains of the proposed approach are quantified via extensive numerical results.