Non-orthogonal transmission under flexible illumination patterns for advanced satellite payloads

Abstract

This works proposes a flexible illumination pattern with nonorthogonal transmissions, which reuse the same carrier frequency in different beams, to enhance the service quality for a region of interest within the satellite footprint. In particular, we assume an advanced satellite communication payload architecture, allowing for a flexible allocation of power and bandwidth across beams together with active antenna subsystems to relocate beams. To take a full advantage of the flexible payload capabilities, a non-orthogonal transmission scheme, known as Space-Time Rate Splitting, is utilized that only requires a minimum amount of channel state information to be known at the transmitter. Performance improvements, in terms of the minimum user throughput up to 50% with respect to single beam orthogonal transmission have been identified, as long as user terminals can apply a single-state successive interference cancellation. Lower gain values are observed when non-orthogonal transmission and conventional single user detection techniques are deployed as the receiver.