A carrier phase estimator for multimedia satellite payloads suited to RSC coding schemes

Most of GEO satellite telecommunication systems today aim at providing multimedia access services to low cost and power-limited user terminals by implementing performant regenerative onboard processing techniques (demodulation, routing). In order to meet high QoS performance at low SNR, especially on the satellite uplink, performant coding schemes such as turbo codes are necessary. We focus on the critical point of the on-board demodulator: the carrier phase recovery performed in presence of powerful turbo decoding. Non-data aided (NDA) and TD estimators are presented and analysed in terms of characteristics for transmissions using recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) codes that can be used for turbo codes. We show that TD estimation can operate down to E_c/N₀=0 dB with frequency offset up to 10 ^-3