Advanced physical layer techniques: Performance limits within future multi-spot Ka-band networks

The ever growing demand for broadband satellite services experienced in recent years has created new opportunities for high speed satellite communication systems and stimulated a rapid advancement in space and ground segment technologies. The multi-spot beam system architectures is one of the most effective solutions to satisfy the ever increasing users´ requirements and their future evolution, allowing the reuse of frequency spectrum over the coverage region. As such, it represents one of the main areas of interest for the satellite communication industries. This paper aims at identifying some key expected technology limits on system performance, measured in terms of the overall offered throughput from the gateway towards the end users and the related availability. The paper also presents potential benefits and gains in terms of throughput and availability that the adoption of an enhanced air-interface could bring in a selected set of reference scenarios and application use cases. The presented assessment is based on simulations for a realistic future multi-spot beam scenario.