Space-time coding in mobile Satellite communications using dual-polarized channels

The use of dual-orthogonal polarization (horizontal/vertical or circular right-hand/left-hand polarizations) can increase the rate of transmission of satellite communication systems by a factor of two. However, the cross polar discriminations (XPDs) of the satellite and earth station antennas may be large enough to severely interfere between the two polarizations. In this paper, we investigate the use of space-time coding techniques in satellite-land mobile systems using dual-polarized transmit and receive antennas. In particular, we show that we can achieve significant gains by using layered space-time coding concepts and iterative detection and decoding receivers in communications systems employing polarization diversity channels in the presence of line-of-sight components.