PreDem - Precoding Demonstrator for broadband system forward links

Principal investigator: Dr. Symeon Chatzinotas
Partners: DLR (DE), SES (LU), Fraunhofer (DE)
Funding: ESA- European Space Agency
Researcher: Dr. Stefano Andrenacci, Danilo Spano

About the Project

The goal of PreDem is to demonstrate the ability of broadband multibeam satellite systems to operate in aggressive frequency reuse modes, enabled by advanced signal processing methods, namely precoding. Despite the incorporation of similar techniques in the most recent definitions of terrestrial communication systems, precoding over satellite is hindered by a number of practical issues and constraints. Considering the inherent nature of the satellite channel, DVB-S2X has been optimized to approach the modulation constrained Shannon bound offering high spectral efficiency. The question that arises is whether precoding can offer significant throughput gains considering a realistic implementation over satellite. From a system level perspective, these constraints include per-antenna power limitations at the satellite, multiple gateways that feed the satellite and user scheduling. Practical constraints in the transmitter physical layer implementation include the framing of the transmit signals in DVB-S2X super-frames and scheduling users in these frames while at the receiver the development of channel estimation methods that can cope with the multiuser interference limited environment of multibeam satellites operating in aggressive frequency reuse configurations.  The development of a full-fledged simulator that includes all system and physical layer aspects involved in precoding over satellite, is the main product to be delivered, towards concluding this research activity.

 

Project Partners

• SnT, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg 
• DLR, Germany
• Fraunhofer, Germany
• SES S.A.

Funding

• Funding Source: European Space Agency (ARTES 5.1)
• Project Start Date: 03/2015
• Project End Date: 03/2017

Project Team

• Project Manager: Dr. Symeon Chatzinotas

Research Team

• Prof. Bjorn Ottersten
• Dr. Symeon Chatzinotas
• Dr. Dimitrios Christopoulos
• Dr. Stefano Andrenacci
• Danilo Spano

Relevant links

• CoRaSat
• Co2Sat
• SeMiGod
• GBBF

Contact

Dr. Symeon Chatzinotas