Multi-user interference mitigation techniques for broadband multi-beam satellite systems

This paper presents a comprehensive evaluation of multi-user interference mitigation techniques for a broadband multi-beam satellite system. More in detail, present multi-beam satellite systems are strongly limited by the effect of inter-beam interference, which has to be necessarily reduced with the adoption of advanced signal processing techniques. The limitation in the bandwidth of the feeder link further exacerbates this problem, forcing gateways to operate only on a fraction of the total beams number, thus limiting the effectiveness of multi-user interference mitigation techniques unless some form of gateway collaboration is not adopted. This paper discusses the possible performance gain achievable by gateway cooperation, as opposed to centralized operations, and results are presented for the return link, based on both analytical considerations and numerical simulations on a realistic scenario.