In-Lab Carrier Aggregation Testbed for Satellite Communication Systems
Jorge L. Gonzalez-Rios, Eva Lagunas, Hayder Al-Hraishawi, Luis M. Garces-Socarras, Symeon Chatzinotas

TL;DR
This paper introduces a satellite communication testbed for carrier aggregation using SDR and satellite emulators, demonstrating its potential benefits across GEO and MEO satellite scenarios.
Contribution
It presents a detailed design and experimental validation of a satellite CA testbed, including multi-orbit scenarios, which was not previously explored in practical setups.
Findings
Carrier aggregation improves spectrum utilization in SatCom.
Testbed results show increased data rates with CA over GEO and MEO satellites.
Multi-orbit CA scenarios are feasible and beneficial.
Abstract
Carrier Aggregation (CA) is a technique used in 5G and previous cellular generations to temporarily increase the data rate of a specific user during peak demand periods or to reduce carrier congestion. CA is achieved by combining two or more carriers and providing a virtual, wider overall bandwidth to high-demand users of the system. CA was introduced in the 4G/LTE wireless era and has been proven effective in 5G as well, where it is said to play a significant role in efficient network capacity management. Given this success, the satellite communication (SatCom) community has put its attention into CA and the potential benefits it can bring in terms of better spectrum utilization and better meeting the user traffic demand. While the theoretical evaluation of CA for SatCom has already been presented in several works, this article presents the design and results obtained with an…
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