Satellite diversity exploitation in mobile satellite CDMA systems

Abstract

The paper addresses the exploitation of satellite diversity in a satellite mobile network. In particular, we focus on the impact of diversity on service availability and on system capacity, considering the forward link of a CDMA system with a multi-satellite and multi-beam architecture. The analysis includes the effects of path blockage, imperfect power control, and fading correlation. We show that satellite diversity is essential in providing service availability in urban and suburban areas. Also, we show that the impact of satellite diversity on system capacity may be positive or negative, mainly depending on the transmission channel characteristics. In particular, diversity becomes very beneficial whenever fading correlation is considered. The analytical results have been validated by means of Monte Carlo simulation.