Deploying Joint Beamhopping and Precoding in Multibeam Satellite Networks

NETWORKS Vahid Joroughi⋆, Eva Lagunas⋆, Stefano Andrenacci⋆, Nicola Maturo⋆ Symeon Chatzinotas⋆, Joel Grotz† and Björn Ottersten⋆ ⋆Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, University of Luxembourg †SES. S. A., Betzdolf, Luxembourg E-mail:{vahid.joroughi, eva.lagunas, stefano.andrenacci, symeon.chatzinotas, bjorn.ottersten}@uni.lu, joel.grotz@ses.com ABSTRACT This paper studies the application of Beam Hopping (BH) as a key enabler to provide high level of flexibility to manage scarce on-board resources, particularly power, based on the irregular and time variant traffic requests/demands distributed within the coverage of a satellite multibeam system. However, while high throughput full frequency reuse pattern is employed among beams, the performance of BH is significantly degraded due to the generated inter-beam interference, and applying precoding is essential. In this context, we propose Joint Precoding and BH (J-PBH) in a multibeam system. The proposed J-PBH has the following functionality: serving beams follows an illumination pattern where at consecutive time instants high-demand beams are served more often than low-demand beams. Then, a Zero Forcing precoding is employed aiming at equalizing inter-beam interference. Consequently, the proposed J-PBH flexibly manage on-board power resources between highand low-demand beams. Numerical simulations are presented which validate the proposed J-PBH benefits.