ESA CGD

ESA CGD: “Prototype of a Centralized Broadband Gateway for Precoded Multi-beam Networks"

Project Description:

Precoding techniques have been demonstrated to be able to increase the throughput of Very-High Throughput Satellite (VHTS) systems. The best performance can be obtained when there is only one central entity in the network in charge of precoding all user carriers. This architecture fits particularly well within a centralized gateway concept, where all digital baseband processes are implemented in a remote server connected via high speed fibers to the distributed remote gateways responsible for the downlink and uplink of the satellite radio frequency signals.

Furthermore, the aforementioned centralized architecture represents a promising solution to deal with the bandwidth requirements of the feeder link, which increases proportionally with the frequency reuse in the user link.  By deploying several gateways, the available spectrum for the feeder link can be reused among spatially separated gateways through very directive antennas.

In this activity a prototype of a centralized gateway for a broadband satellite network will be designed and tested. In particular, this activity focuses on the technical challenges of a centralized precoding design, which are summarized below:

•  Multicast scheduler optimization,

•  Network time and frequency synchronization,

•  Feeder link Doppler pre-compensation,

•  Precoding matrix computation and implementation complexity optimization,

•  Impact of non-linear distortions.

All these issues constitute open questions that have to be properly addressed by modelling and simulations in order to assess their performance benefits and impacts.

Funding: This project is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) ARTES Advance Technology

Project Duration: 2022 - on-going

Relevant Publications:
S. Kisseleff, E. Lagunas, J. Krivochiza, J. Querol, N. Maturo, L. Martinez-Marrero, J. Duncan, S. Chatzinotas, “Centralized Gateway Concept for Precoded Multi-beam GEO Satellite Networks”, IEEE VTC-fall workshop on Evolution of Non-Terrestrial Networks toward 6G, Sept. 2021 

Research Team:

• Dr Symeon Chatzinotas (SnT) – Project Manager

• Dr Eva Lagunas (SnT) – Technical Contact Point

• Dr Jorge Luis Gonzalez (SnT) – HW Coordinator

• Dr. Saed Daoud (SnT) - SW Coordinator

• Dr Liz Martinez-Marrero (SnT)

• Dr Rakesh Palisetty (SnT)

• Dr Jevgenij Krivochiza (SnT)

• Carlos Marcos Rojas (PhD Candidate)

With the support of SES, S.A.