# Precoded Cluster Hopping in Multi-Beam High Throughput Satellite Systems

## TL;DR

This paper introduces Cluster-Hopping, a novel method combining beam-hopping and precoding in high throughput satellite systems to optimize capacity and spectral efficiency through efficient pattern design.

## Contribution

It proposes the Cluster-Hopping concept and an integer programming approach for designing time-space illumination patterns in HTS systems.

## Key findings

- Cluster-Hopping improves spectral efficiency.
- Optimized illumination patterns enhance capacity.
- Numerical results validate the proposed approach.

## Abstract

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.