Performance of COFDM for LEO satellite channels in global mobile communications

The growing interest in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) research motivated us to propose OFDM for satellite communications. In this paper, convolutional coding (CC) and trellis coded modulation (TCM) are combined with OFDM for a Rician fading channel according to the specifications given by the Iridium system. Here, the bit error rate (BER) performance of OFDM with 8-PSK and 16-QAM modulation techniques along with two different coding schemes are considered for a LEO satellite channel. Results are analyzed with two frequency bands, i.e. Ka and L band. Results show that there is no significant difference of the BER performance between the two frequency bands considered. Trellis coded OFDM gives the best performance compared to convolutional coded OFDM. The peak to average power ratio (PAPR) can be reduced approximately by 1.5 dB with the help of the partial transmit sequence technique (PTS)