UNIT -IV

Multiple Access: Frequency DivisIon Multiple Access (FDMA) – Intermodujation Calculation

of C/N, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) – Frame Structure, Burst Structure, Satellite
Switched TDMA, On-board Processing, Demand Assignment Multiple Access (DAMA) —
Types of Demand Assignment, Characteristics, CDMA Spread Spectrum Transmission and
Reception.
 UNIT IV
Modulation and Multiplexing: Voice, Data, Video :
Communications satellites are used to carry telephone, video, and data signals,
and can use both analog and digital modulation techniques.

Modulation:
Modification of a carrier’s parameters (amplitude, frequency, phase, or a combination
of them) in dependence on the symbol to be sent. Multiplexing:

Task of multiplexing is to assign space, time, frequency, and code to each

communication channel with a minimum of interference and a maximum of medium
utilization Communication channel refers to an association of sender(s) and receiver(s)
that want to exchange data One of several constellations of a
carrier’s parameters defined by the used modulation scheme.

Voice, Data, Video :

The modulation and multiplexing techniques that were used at this time were
analog, adapted from the technology developed for The change to digital voice signals
made it easier for long-distance.

Figure 3.1 Modulation and Multiplexing: Voice/Data/Video

 Communication carriers to mix digital data and telephone Fiber-optic Cable
Transmission Standards System Bit rate (Mbps) 64- kbps Voice channel capacity Stuffing
bits and words are added to the satellite data stream as needed to fill empty bit and word
spaces.

Primarily for video provided that a satellite link's overall carrier-to-noise but in to
older receiving equipment at System and Satellite Specification Ku-band satellite
parameters.

Modulation And Multiplexing:

In analog television (TV) transmission by satellite, the baseband video signal and
one or two audio subcarriers constitute a composite video signal.

Digital modulation is obviously the modulation of choice for transmitting digital

data are digitized analog signals may conveniently share a channel with digital data,
allowing a link to carry a varying mix of voice and data traffic.

Digital signals from different channels are interleaved for transmission through
time division multiplexing TDM carry any type of traffic — the bent pipe transponder
that can carry voice, video, or data as the marketplace demands.

Hybrid multiple access schemes can use time division multiplexing of baseband
channels which are then modulate.

Analog – digital transmission system:

Analog vs. Digital Transmission:

Compare at two levels:

1. Data—continuous (audio) vs. discrete (text)

2. Signaling—continuously varying electromagnetic wave vs. sequence of voltage
pulses.

Also Transmission—transmit without regard to signal content vs. being

concerned with signal content. Difference in how attenuation is handled, but not focus on
[Link] a shift towards digital transmission despite large analog base. Why?
 Figure 3.2 basic communication systems

• Improving digital technology

• Data integrity. Repeaters take out cumulative problems in transmission. Can
thus transmit longer distances.
• Easier to multiplex large channel capacities with digital
• Easy to apply encryption to digital data
• Better integration if all signals are in one form. Can integrate voice, video and
digital data.

Digital Data/Analog Signals:

Must convert digital data to analog signal such device is a modem to translate
between bit-serial and modulated carrier signals?

To send digital data using analog technology, the sender generates a carrier signal
at some continuous tone (e.g. 1-2 kHz in phone circuits) that looks like a sine wave. The
following techniques are used to encode digital data into analog signals.

Figure 3.3 Digital /Analog Transmitter & receiver

Resulting bandwidth is centered on the carrier frequency.

• Amplitude-shift modulation (keying): vary the amplitude (e.g. voltage) of the

signal. Used to transmit digital data over optical fiber.
• Frequency-shift modulation: two (or more tones) are used, which are near the
carrier frequency. Used in a full-duplex modem (signals in both directions).

• Phase-shift modulation: systematically shift the carrier wave at uniformly

spaced intervals.

For instance, the wave could be shifted by 45, 135, 225, 315 degree at each
timing mark. In this case, each timing interval carries 2 bits of information.

Why not shift by 0, 90, 180, 270? Shifting zero degrees means no shift, and an
extended set of no shifts leads to clock synchronization difficulties.

Frequency division multiplexing (FDM): Divide the frequency spectrum

into smaller subchannels, giving each user exclusive use of a subchannel (e.g., radio
and TV). One problem with FDM is that a user is given all of the frequency to use, and
if the user has no data to send, bandwidth is wasted — it cannot be used by another
user.

Time division multiplexing (TDM): Use time slicing to give each user the full
bandwidth, but for only a fraction of a second at a time (analogous to time
sharing in operating systems). Again, if the user doesn’t have data to sent during his
timeslice, the bandwidth is not used (e.g., wasted).

Statistical multiplexing: Allocate bandwidth to arriving packets on demand.

This leads to the most efficient use of channel bandwidth because it only carries
useful [Link] is, channel bandwidth is allocated to packets that are waiting for
transmission, and a user generating no packets doesn’t use any of the channel resources.

Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB):

Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) has become the synonym for digital
television and for data broadcasting world-wide.

DVB services have recently been introduced in Europe, in North- and South
America, in Asia, Africa and Australia.
This article aims at describing what DVB is all about and at introducing some
of the technical background of a technology that makes possible the
broadcasting.

Figure 3.4 Digital Video Broadcasting systems

 MULTIPLE ACCESS
With the increase of channel demands and the number of earth stations, efficient use of a
satellite transponder in conjunction with many stations has resulted in the development of
multiple access techniques. Multiple access is a technique in which the satellite resource
(bandwidth or time) is divided into a number of nonoverlapping segments and each segment
is allocated exclusively to each of the large number of earth stations who seek to
communicate with each other. There are three known multiple access techniques. They are:

(1) Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)

(2) Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
(3) Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)

FREQUENCY DIVISION MULTIPLE ACCESS (FDMA)

The most widely used of the multiple access techniques is FDMA. In FDMA, the available
satellite bandwidth is divided into portions of non-overlapping frequency slots which are
assigned exclusively to individual earth stations. A basic diagram of an FDMA satellite
system is shown in Fig.

Examples of this technique are FDM/FM/FDMA used in INTELSAT II & III and SCPC
satellite systems. Also, SPACE (signal-channel-per-carrier PCM multiple access demand
assignment equipment) used in INTELSAT IV in which channels are assigned on demand to
earth stations is considered as a FDMA system. In FDMA systems, multiple signals from the
same or different earth stations with different carrier frequencies are simultaneously passed
through a satellite transponder. Because of the nonlinear mode of the transponder, FDMA
signals interact with each other causing intermodulation products (intermodulation noise)
which are signals at all combinations of sum and difference frequencies as shown in the
example given in Fig.

The power of these intermodulation products represents a loss in the desired signal power. In
addition, if these intermodulation products appear within the bandwidth of the other signals,
they act as interference for these signals and as a result the BER performances will be
degraded. The other major disadvantage of the FDMA system is the need for accurate uplink
power control among network stations in order to mitigate the weak signal suppression effect
caused by disproportionate power sharing of the transponder power.
Intermodulation
Intermodulation products are generated whenever more than one signal is carried by
nonlinear device. Sometimes filtering can be used to remove the IM products, but if they are
within the bandwidth of the transponder they cannot be filtered out. The saturation
characteristic of a transponder can be modeled by a cubic curve to illustrate the generation of
third –order intermodulation. Third -order IM is important because third –order products
often have frequencies close to the signals that generate the intermodulation, and are therefore
likely to be within the transponder bandwidth. To illustrate the generation of third - order
intermodulation products, we will model the nonlinear characteristic of the transponder HPA
with a cubic voltage relationship and apply two unmodulated carriers at frequencies f1 and f2
at the input of the amplifier
V out= AVin + b(Vin)3 …….(1)
where A >> b.
The amplifier input signal is
V1cosω1t+ V2 cosω2t …. (2)
It can be seen that IM products increase in proportion to the cubes of the signal powers with
2
power levels that depend on the ratio (b/A) . The greater the nonlinearity of the amplifier
(larger b/A ratio), the larger the IM products.

Intermodulation Example
Consider the case of a 36 -MHz bandwidth C -band transponder which has an output
spectrum for downlink signals in the frequency range 3705-3741 MHz. The transponder
carries two unmodulated carriers at 3718 and 3728 MHz with equal magnitudes at the input
to the HPA. Using Eq. (6.7), the output of the HPA will contain additional frequency
components at frequencies
f31= (2 x 3718 — 3728) = 3708 MHz
f32= (2 X 3728 — 3718) = 3738 MHz
Both of the IM frequencies are within the transponder bandwidth and will there
be present in an earth station receiver that is set to the frequency of this transponder.
magnitude of the IM products will depend on the ratio b/A, a measure of the nonlinearity of
the HPA, and on the actual level of the two signals in the transponder.

Now consider the case where the two signals carry modulation which spreads signal
energy into a bandwidth of 8 MHz around each carrier. Carrier 1 has frequencies 3714 to
3722 MHz and carrier 2 has frequencies 3726 to 3734 MHz. Denoting the band of
frequencies occupied by the signals as f nlo to fnhi, the intermodulation products cover the
frequency bands
(2f1lo-f2hi) to (2f1hi-2f2lo) and (2f2lo-f1hi) to (2f2hi-f1lo)

The IM products are spread over bandwidths (2B1+ B2) and (2B2+ B1). Hence
the third -order IM products for this example cover these frequencies: 3706 —
3730 MHz and 3716 — 3740 MHz with bandwidths of 24 MHz.

FIGURE 6.4Intermodulation between two C -band carriers in a transponder with third -order
nonlinearity.
The location of the 8 MHz wide signals and 24 MHz wide IM products is illustrated
in Figure 6.4. The intermodulation products now interfere with both signals, and also cover
the empty frequency space in the transponder. Third -order IM products grow rapidly as the
output of the transponder increases Toward saturation. Equation (6.9) shows that IM power
increases as the cube of signal power in decibel units, every 10 dB increase in signal power
causes a 30 dB increase in IM product-power. Consequently, the easiest way to reduce IM
problems is to reduce the level of it the signals in the HPA. The output power of an operating
transponder is related to its saturated output power by output backoff. Backoff is measured in
decibel units, so a transponder with a 50W rated (saturated) output power operating with an
output power of 25 W has output backoff of 17 dBW —14 dBW = 3 dB. Intermodulation
products are reduced by 9 dB when 3 dB backoff is applied, so any nonlinear transponder
carrying more than one signal will usually have some backoff applied. Since a transponder is
an amplifier, the output power level is controlled by the input power, and there is a saturated
input power level corresponding to the saturated output level. When the transponder is
operated with output backoff, the power level at its input is reduced by the input backoff
because the transponder characteristics are not linear, input backoff is always larger than
output backoff. Figure 6.5 illustrates the operating point and input and output backoff for a
transponder with a nonlinear TWTA. The nonlinearity of the transponder causes the input
and output backoff values to be unequal. In the example shown in Figure 6.5, the transponder
saturates at an input power of —100 dBW. The transponder is operated at an input power of
—102.2 dBW, giving an input backoff of —2.2 dB. The corresponding output backoff is 1.0
dB, giving an output power of 16 dBW (40W), 10W below the saturated output power of
50W (17 dBW).
Note that the TWTA has slightly different characteristics when operated with a single
carrier and multiple carriers. The generation of intermodulation products when multiple
carriers are present robs the wanted output of some of the transponder output power. For the
nonlinearity shown in Figure 6.5, the reduction in output power is 0.6 dB at saturation. In the
example above, both carriers had equal power. If the powers are unequal, the weaker signal
may be swamped by intermodulation products from the stronger carrier. This can be seen
from Eq.(6.9);the IM products that tend to affect Carrier 1 have voltages proportional to the
square of the voltage of Carrier 2.
Calculation of C/N with Intermodulation
Intermodulation between carriers in a nonlinear transponder adds unwanted products into the
transponder bandwidth that are treated as though the interference were Gaussian noise For
wideband carriers, the behavior of the IM products will be noiselike; with narrow band
carriers, the assumption may not be accurate, but is applied because of the difficulty of
determining the exact nature of the IM products.
The output backoff of a transponder reduces the output power level of all carriers, which
therefore reduces the (C/N) ratio in the transponder. The transponder C/N ratio appears as
(C/N)up in the calculation of the overall (C/N)0 ratio in the earth station receiver 1M noise in
the transponder is defined by another C/N ratio, (C/N), Which enters the overall (C/N)0 ratio
through the reciprocal formula (using linear C/N power ratios)
(C/N)0 =1/[1/(C/N)up +1/(C/N)dn + 1/(C/N)IM
Techniques for the calculation of (C/N) IM are beyond the scope of this text. Full knowledge
of the transponder nonlinearity and the signals carried by the transponder is required
to permit (C/N)IM to be calculated. There is an optimum output backoff for any nonlinear
transponder operating in FDMA mode. Figure 6.6 illustrates the effect of the HPA operating
point on each C/N ratio in Eq. (6.10) when the operating point is set by the power transmitted
by the uplink earth station. The uplink (C/N)up ratio increases linearly as the transponder
input power is increased, leading to a corresponding nonlinear increase in transponder output
power as the nonlinear region of the transponder is reached, the downlink (C/N)dn ratio
increases less rapidly than (C/N)up because the nonlinear transponder is going into saturation
Intermodulation products start to appear as the nonlinear region is approached, increasing
rapidly as saturation is reached. With a third -order model for nonlinearity, the
intermodulation products increase in power at three times the rate at which the input power to
the transponder is increases, causing (C/N)IM to decrease rapidly as saturation is approached.
When all three C/N ratios are combined through Eq. (6.10), the overall (C/N)0 ratio in the
receiving earth station receiver has a maximum value at an input power level of —104 dBW
in the example in Figure 6.6. This is the optimum operating point for the transponder. The
optimum operating point may be many decibels below the saturated output level of the
transponder under some conditions.
 VSAT networks and mobile satellite telephones often use single channel per carrier
(SCPC) FDMA to share transponder bandwidth. Because the carriers are narrowband, in the
10 to 128 kHz range typically, a 36 or 54 MHz transponder may carry many hundreds of
carriers simultaneously. The balance between the power levels of the carriers may not be
maintained, especially in a system with mobile transmitters that can be subject to fading. The
transponder must operate in a linear mode for such systems to be feasible, either by the use of
a linear transponder or by applying large output backoff to force operation of the transponder
into its linear region.

TIME DIVISION MULTIPLE ACCESS (TDMA)

In search of an alternative multiple access technique; attention was focused on the
possibilities afforded by TDMA. In TDMA, the sharing of the communication resource by
several earth stations is performed by assigning a short time (time slot) to each earth station in
which they have exclusive use of the entire transponder bandwidth and communicate with
each other by means of non-overlapping burst of signals. A basic TDMA system is shown in
Fig.

In TDMA, the transmit timing of the bursts is accurately synchronized so that the transponder
receives one burst at a time. Each earth station receives an entire burst stream and extracts the
bursts intended for it. A frame consists of a number of bursts originating from a community
of earth stations in a network. A TDMA frame structure is shown in Fig.
It consists of two reference bursts RB1and RB2, traffic bursts and the guard time between
bursts. As can be seen, each TDMA frame has two reference bursts RB1 and RB2. The
primary reference burst (PRB), which can be either RB1 or RB2, is transmitted by one of the
earth stations in the network designated as the primary reference earth station. For reliability,
a second reference burst (SRB) is transmitted by a secondary reference earth station. To
ensure undisrupted service for the TDMA network, automatic switchover between these two
reference stations is provided. The reference bursts carry no traffic information and are used
to provide synchronization for all earth stations in the network.
The traffic bursts carry information from the traffic earth station. Each earth station accessing
a transponder may transmit one or two traffic bursts per TDMA frame and may position them
anywhere in the frame according to a burst time plan that coordinates traffic between earth
stations in the network.
The Guard time between bursts ensures that the bursts never overlap at the input to the
transponder.

The TDMA bursts structure of the reference and traffic burst are given in Fig
In the traffic burst, traffic data (information bits) is preceded by a pattern of bits referred to as
a preamble which contains the information for synchronization, management and control.
Various sequences in the reference burst and traffic burst are as follows:

Carrier and bit timing recovery (CBTR)

The CBTR pattern provides information for carrier and timing recovery circuits of the earth
station demodulator. The length of the CBTR sequence depends on the carrier-to-noise ratio
at the input of the demodulator and the acquisition range. For example, the 120 Mb/s TDMA
system of INTELSAT V has a 48 symbol pattern for carrier recovery and a 128 symbol
pattern for bit timing recovery.

Unique word (UW)

The unique word sequence in the reference burst provides the receive frame timing that
allows an earth station to locate the position of a traffic burst in the frame. The UW in the
traffic burst marks the beginning of the traffic burst and provides information to an earth
station so that it selects only those traffic bursts intended for it. The UW is a sequence of ones
and zeros selected to exhibit good correlation properties to enhance detection. The UW of the
INTELSAT V TDMA system has a length of 24 symbols.

Teletype (TTY) and voice order wire (VOW)

Teletype and voice order wire patterns carry instructions to and from earth stations. The
number of symbols for each of the patterns is 8 symbols for the INTELSAT V TDMA.

Service channel (SC)

The service channel of the reference burst carriers management instructions such as burst
time plan which gives the coordination of traffic between earth stations, i.e. position, length,
and source and destination earth stations corresponding to traffic bursts in the TDMA frame.
The channel also carries monitoring and control information to the traffic stations.

The SC of the traffic burst carries the traffic station’s status to the reference station (value of
transmit delay used and reference station from which the delay is obtained). It also contains
other information such as the high bit error rate and UW loss alarms to other traffic stations.
The INTELSAT V TDMA has an 8-symbol SC for each of the bursts.

Control and delay channel (CDC)

The control and delay channel pattern carries acquisition and synchronization information to
the traffic earth stations to enable them to adjust their transmit delays so that bursts arrive at
the satellite transponder within the correct time slots in the frame. It also carries the reference
station status code which enables them to identify the primary and secondary reference
bursts. Eight symbols are allocated for this channel in the INTELSAT V TDMA.
Traffic data
This portion contains the information from a source traffic station to a destination traffic
station. The informants can be voice, data, video or facsimile signals. The traffic data pattern
is divided into blocks of data (referred to as subburst).

The size of each data block is given by:

Subburst size (symbols) = symbol rate (symbols/sec) X frame length (sec).

The INTELSAT TDMA with a frame length of T f = 2 msec for PCM voice data has a
subburst size of 64 symbols long.

Satellite-switched TDMA (SS-TDMA)

A satellite-switched TDMA system is an efficient TDMA system with multiple spot beam
operation for the uplink and downlink transmissions. The interconnection between the uplink
and downlink beams is performed by a high-speed switch matrix located at the heart of the
satellite. An SS-TDMA scheme provides a full interconnection of TDMA signals among
various coverage regions by means of interconnecting the corresponding uplink and downlink
beams at a switching time. Figure shows a three-beam (beams A, B and C) example of a SS-
TDMA system.
The switch matrix is configured in a crossbar design in which only a single row is connected
to a single column at a time. In this figure, three different traffic patterns during time slot
intervals T1, T2 and T3, with three different switch states s1, s2 and s3 are also shown. The
switching sequence is programmed via a ground control so that states can be changed from
time to time. The advantages of SS-TDMA systems over TDMA systems are:

(1) The possibility of frequency re-use by spot-beam spatial discrimination, i.e. the same
frequency band can be spatially re-used many times. Hence, a considerable increase in
satellite capacity can be made.
(2) The use of a narrow antenna beam which provides a high gain for the coverage region.
Hence, a power saving can be obtained in both the uplink and downlink. An SS-TDMA
scheme has been planned for INTELSAT VI and Olympus satellites.
Satellite Switched TDMA
One advantage that TDMA has when used with a baseband processing transponder is satellite
switched TDMA. Instead of using a single antenna beam to maintain continuous
communication with its entire coverage zone, the satellite has a number of narrow antenna
beams that -can be used sequentially to cover the zone. A narrow antenna beam has a high
gain than a broad beam, which increases the satellite EIRP and therefore increases the
capacity of the downlink. Uplink signals received by the satellite are demodulated to recover
the bit streams, which are structured as a sequence of packets addressed to different receiving
earth stations. The satellite creates TDMA frames of data that contain packets addressed to
specific earth stations, and switches its transmit beam to the direction of the receiving earth
station as the packets are transmitted. Note that control of the TDMA network timing could
now be on board the satellite, rather than at a master earth station.

ONBOARD PROCESSING
The discussion of multiple access so far has assumed the use of a bent pipe transponder.
which simply amplifies a signal received from earth and retransmits it back to earth at a
different frequency. The advantage of a bent pipe transponder is flexibility. The transponder
can be used for any combination of signals that will fit within its bandwidth. The
disadvantage of the bent pipe transponder is that it is not well suited to uplinks from small
earth stations, especially uplinks operating in Ka band. Consider a link between a same
transmitting earth station and a large hub station via a bent pipe GEO satellite transponder.
There will usually be a small rain fade margin on the uplink from the transmitting station
because of its low EIRP. When rain affects the uplink, the C/N ratio in the transponder will
fall. The overall C/N ratio in the hub station receiver cannot be greater than the C/N ratio in
the transponder, so the bit error rate at the hub station will increase quickly as rain affects the
uplink. The only available solution is to use forward error correction coding on the link,
which lowers the data throughput but is actually needed for less than 5% of the time. The
problem of uplink attenuation in rain is most severe for 30/20 GHz uplinks with small
margins. Outages are likely to be frequent unless a large rain fade margin is included- in the
uplink power budget. Onboard processing or a baseband processing transponder can
overcome this problem by separating the uplink and downlink signals and their C/N ratios.
The baseband processing transponder can also have different modulation schemes on the
uplink and downlink to improve spectral efficiency, and can dynamically apply forward error
control to only those links affected by rain attenuation.
All LEO satellites providing mobile telephone service use onboard processing, and Ka-band
satellites providing Internet access to individual users also use onboard processing.

Satellite Switched TDMA with Onboard Processing

Baseband processing is essential in satellites using satellite switched TDMA, because data
packets must be routed to different antenna beams based on the address of the destination
earth station. The data in such systems is always sent in packets which contain a header and a
traffic section. The header contains the address of the originating station and the address of
the destination earth station. When satellite switched TDMA is used, the transponder must
extract the destination information and use it to select the correct downlink beam for that
packet. The satellite is operating much like a router in a terrestrial data transmission system.
Switched beam operation of an uplink from a small earth station is more difficult to achieve
because it requires synchronization of the earth station transmit time with the satellite beam
pointing sequence, in much the same way that a TDMA uplink operates. However, the uplink
can operate in a small bandwidth which overcomes the chief disadvantage of classic TDMA
—the requirement for high burst rate transmissions and high transmit power.

Satellite switched TDMA can greatly increase the throughput of a transponder. Consider, for
example, a satellite providing Internet access to individual users in the United States. The
uplink and downlink beams at the satellite must provide coverage over an area approximately
6° by 3°, as seen from the satellite. Antenna gain and beamwidth are related by the
approximate relationship G = 33,000/(product of beamwidths in degrees).This limits the
maximum achievable satellite antenna gain to approximately 32.5 dB.

A satellite with switched beam capability can have much narrower beams with higher gain
than a satellite with a single fixed beam. The limitation on gain is the diameter of the antenna,
which must fit inside the launch vehicle shroud. For launchers available in 2000, this limit is
about 3.5 m. At 20 GHz, the uplink frequency for Ka band, an antenna with a circular
aperture of diameter D = 3.5 m and aperture efficiency of ηA = 65% has a gain G =
ηA(ΠD/A )2 = 55.4 dB, and its beamwidth is approximately 75 λ/D Degrees = 0.32°. The
corresponding downlink antenna for 30 GHz that has a beamwidth of 0.32° and a gain of 55.4
dB has a diameter of 2.33 m. The switched beam satellite has an antenna gain almost 23 dB
higher than the single beam satellite, which can be traded directly for reduction in uplink or
downlink transmit power, and uplink downlink data rate. However, the satellite must generate
at least 170 beams to cover of the United States with 0.32° beams, with a consequent increase
in satellite antenna complexity.
Satellite switched TDMA and multiple beam antennas are a feature of most of proposed Ka -
band Internet access satellites. The Astrolink satellites, for example, have 105 spot beams for
links to small user terminals. The satellite uplink (30 GHz) antenna has a diameter of 2.5 m
and the downlink antenna has a diameter of 3.25 m. There are five spot beams for links to
hub stations; the large antennas used by the hub stations al- low a lower gain antenna with a
broader beam to be used on the satellite. Coverage of the United States with multiple beams
is not always provided uniformly. Differences in population densities and the frequency of
heavy rainfall make it advantageous to provide more system capacity to metropolitan areas,
and also to provide higher link margins to areas with more frequent heavy rainfall, such as
Florida and the south- eastern states. In the most sophisticated of large GEO satellites, a
steerable phased array antenna can be used, with control of beam pointing from the ground
via the satellite's telemetry and command link. The antenna beams can then be moved to
provide coverage of areas with highest demand for traffic. The growth of the terrestrial
optical fiber network will eventually fulfill the need for high-speed access to the Internet.
Where direct access to an ISP is available via optical fiber, the transmission rate is likely to
be higher and the cost to the user is likely to be lower. As the fiber network spreads through
metropolitan areas, an Internet access satellite can concentrate its service on less well
populated and rural areas. A steerable beam antenna allows the geographical capacity of the
satellite to be reconfigured throughout its lifetime.

DEMAND ACCESS MULTIPLE ACCESS (DAMA)

Demand access can be used in any satellite communication link where traffic from an
earth station is intermittent. An example is an LEO satellite system providing links to mobile
telephones. Telephone voice users communicate at random times, for periods ranging from
less than a minute to several minutes. As a percentage of total time, the use of an individual
telephone may be as little as 1%. If each user were allocated a fixed channel, the utilization of
the entire system might be as low as 1%, especially at night when demand for telephone
channels is small. Demand access allows a satellite channel to be allocated to a user on
demand, rather than continuously, which greatly increases the number of simultaneous users
who can be served by the system. The two-way telephone channel may be a pair of frequency
slots in a DA-SCPC system, a pair of time slots in a TDM or TDMA system, or any
combination or FDMA, TDM, and TDMA. Most SCPC-FDMA systems use demand access
to ensure that the available bandwidth in a transponder is used as fully as possible.
In the early days of satellite communication, the equipment required to allocate
channels on demand, either in frequency or time, was large and expensive. The growth of
cellular telephone systems has led to the development of low cost, highly integrated
controllers and frequency synthesizers that make demand access feasible. Cellular telephone
systems use demand access and techniques similar to those used by satellite systems in the
allocation of channels to users. The major difference between a cellular system and a satellite
system is that in a cellular system the controller is at the base station to which the user is
connected by a single hop radio link. In a satellite communication system, there is always a
two hop link via the satellite to a controller at the hub earth station. Controllers are not placed
on the satellites largely because of the difficulties in determining which links are in use, and
who will be charged for the connection.
As a result, all connections pass through a controlling earth station that can determine
whether to permit the requested connection to be made, and who should be charged. In
international satellite communication systems issues such as landing rights require the owner
of the system to ensure that communication can take place only between users in
preauthorized countries anti zones. The presence of the signals from all destinations at a
central earth station also allows security agencies the option of monitoring any traffic deemed
to be contrary to the national interest.

Demand access systems require two different types of channel: a common signalling
channel (CSC) and a communication channel. A user wishing to enter the communication
network first calls the controlling earth station using the CSC, and the controller then
allocates a pair of channels to that user. The CSC is usually operated in random access mode
because the demand for use of the CSC is relatively low messages are short, and the CSC is
therefore lightly loaded, a requirement for any DA link. Packet transmission techniques are
widely used in demand access systems became of the need for addresses to determine the
source and destination of signals. Section 6: discusses the design of packets for use in
satellite communication systems. Bent pipe transponders are often used in demand access
mode, allowing any configuration of FDMA channels to be adopted. There seem to be few
standards for demand access systems in the satellite communication industry, with each
network using a different proprietary configuration. Figure shows a typical 54 MHz
bandwidth Ku bank transponder frequency plan for the inbound channels of a VSAT network
using frequents division multiple access with single channel per carrier and demand access
(FDMA-SCPC-DA) on the inbound link.
The individual outbound RF channels are 45 kHz wide, to accommodate the occupied
bandwidth of 64-kbps bit streams transmitted using QPSK and RRC filters with a = 0.4. A
guard band of 15 kHz is allowed between each RF channel. so one RF channel requires a
total bandwidth of 60 kHz. A 54 MHz bandwidth transponder can accommodate 900 of these
60 kHz channels, but it is unlikely that all are used at the same time. Many VSAT systems
are power limited, preventing the full use of the transponder bandwidth, and the statistics of
.demand access systems ensure that tie likelihood of all the channels being used at one time is
small. Considerable backoff is required in a bent pipe transponder with large numbers of
FDMA channels.

CODE DIVISION MULTIPLE ACCESS (CDMA)

In CDMA satellite systems, each uplink earth station is identified by an address code
imposed on its carrier. Each uplink earth station uses the entire bandwidth transmits through
the satellite whenever desired. No bandwidth or time sharing is required in CDMA satellite
systems. Signal identification is achieved at a receiving earth station by recognising the
corresponding address code.
There are three CDMA techniques as follows:
1. Direct sequence CDMA (DS-CDMA)
In this technique, an addressed pseudo-noise (PN) sequence generated by the PN code
generator of an uplink earth station together with the information data are modulated directly
on the carrier as shown in Fig. 9.28a. The same PN sequence is used synchronously at the
receiving earth station to despread the received signal in order to receive the original data
information (Fig. 9.28b).

The bits of the PN sequence are referred to as chips. The ratio between the chip rate and
information rate is called the spreading factor. Phase-shift-keying modulation schemes are
commonly used for these systems. The most widely used binary PN sequence is the
maximum length linear feedback shift register sequence (m-sequence) which is generated by
an m-stage shift register. The m-sequence has a period of 2 m - 1. Table 2.3 gives the
properties of the sequence sets which exhibit small peak cross-correlation values suitable for
DSCDMA.
There are two types of DS-CDMA techniques: synchronous and asynchronous. In a
synchronous system, the entire system is synchronized in such a way that the PN sequence
period (code period) or bit duration of all the uplink carriers in the system are in time
alignment at the satellite. This requires that all stations have the same PN sequence period
and the same number of chips per PN sequence length. Hence, a synchronous DS-CDMA
must have the type of network synchronization used in a TDMA system but in a much
simpler form. However, in an asynchronous DS-CDMA satellite no time alignment of the PN
sequence period at the satellite is required and each uplink carrier operates independently
with no overall network synchronization. Therefore, the system complexity is much simpler
than a synchronous system.
2. Frequency hopping CDMA (FH-CDMA)
The block diagram of an FH-CDMA transmitter/receiver is shown in Fig.

Here, the addressed PN sequence is used to continually change the frequency of the carrier at
the uplink earth station (hopping). At the receiver, the local PN code generator produces a
synchronized replica of the transmitted PN code which changes the synthesizer frequency in
order to remove the frequency hops on the received signal, leaving the original modulated
signal untouched. Non-coherent M-ary FSK modulation schemes are commonly used for
these systems.
3. Hybrid CDMA
A hybrid CDMA system employs a combination of DS-CDMA and FHCDMA techniques. In all
these techniques, a larger bandwidth is produced than that which will be generate by the
modulation alone. Because of this spreading of the signal spectrum, CDMA systems are also
referred to as spread spectrum multiple access (SSMA) systems. Spreading the spectrum of the
transmitted signal has important applications in military satellite systems since it produces
inherent anti jam advantages. In addition to anti jamming protection, another important
feature of these systems is their low probability of interception (LPI) and hence, reduces the
probability of reception by unauthorized users.
Spread Spectrum Transmission and Reception
This discussion of CDMA for satellite communications will be restricted to direct sequence
systems, since that is the only form of spread spectrum that has been used by commercial
satellite systems to date. The spreading codes used in DS -SS CDMA systems are designed to
have good autocorrelation properties and low cross -correlation. Various codes have been
developed specifically for this purpose, such as Gold and Kasarni codes.
The DS -SS codes will all be treated as Pseudonoise (PN) sequences in this discussion.
Pseudonoise refers to the spectrum of code, which appears to be a random sequence of bits
(or chips) with a flat, noise like spectrum. The generation of .a DS -SS signal is illustrated in
Figure 1. We will begin by assuming that the system uses baseband signals Most DS -SS
systems generate spread spectrum signals using BPSK modulated versions of the data stream,
but it is easier to see how a DS -SS system operates if the signals are first considered at
baseband. In Figure 1, a bit stream containing traffic data at a rate Rb, converted to have
levels of +1 and —1 V corresponding to the logical states 1 and 0, is multiplied by a PN
sequence, also with levels +1 and — 1 V, at a rate M X Rb Chips per second. Each data bit
results in the transmission of a complete PN sequence of length M chips.

In the example shown in Figure 6.16, the seven chip spreading code sequence is 1110100,
which is converted to +1 +1 +1 —1 +1 —1 —1. The spreading sequence multiplies the data
sequence 0 1, represented as —1 +1, leading to the transmitted sequence —1 —1 —1 +1 —1
+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 —1+1—1 —1 shown at the right in Figure1.
Recovery of the original data stream of bits from the DS-SS signal is achieved by multiplying
the received signal by the same PN code that was used to generate it. The process is
illustrated in Figures 2 and 3.
Figure 2: Data bit recovery using an IF correlator (matched filter). In this example the PN
sequence is seven bits long for illustration. The CDMA chips from the receiver are clocked
into the shift register serially and the shift register contents passed through phase shifters and
added. The phase shifters convert —1 chips to +1 when the correct code is in the shift register
such that all the voltages add to a maximum when the received sequence is correct. This
figure shows the shift register contents and adder output for the chip sequence in Figure 1.
Note that a high spurious output of 5 occurs at the third clock step, indicating that the seven
bit sequence used here for illustration has poor autocorrelation properties.

Figure 3: A baseband correlator for dispreading CDMA signals. The original bit stream is
recovered by multiplying the received signal by a synchronized copy of the PN sequence that
was used in the transmitter.
TEXT BOOKS:
1. Satellite communications-Timothy Pratt, Charles Bostian and Jeremy Allnutt, WSE, Wiley
nd
Publications, 2 Edition,2003.
2. Satellite communications Engineering-Wilbur [Link], Robert A Nelson and Henri
nd
[Link], 2 Edition, Pearson Publications, 2003.
REFERENCES:
nd
1. Satellite communications - Design [Link], BS Publications, 2 Edition, 2003.