Continuous Phase Modulations for future satellite communication systems

Continuous Phase Modulations (CPM) are a wide class of constant envelope modulations. Iterative decoding of serially coded CPM yields high performances when reasonable interleaver sizes (less than 1024) are considered. Performances of some binary and quaternary coded CPM schemes are assessed, then the effect of the modulation index on waveform performance is emphasized. Simulation results will represent a guideline to select the best fitted CPM for future satellite communications systems in Ka band. The choice takes into account power and spectral performances, complexity as well as adaptive aspects. The latter criterion is justified by the significant channel fluctuations in Ka band. In such circumstances, non adaptive waveform leads automatically either to a non efficient channel exploitation or weak system availability.