Performance of a satellite modem transmitting convolutionally and differentially encoded 8PSK signals

Abstract

The paper studies a digital satellite modem for mobile systems. The modem transmits a convolutionally and differentially encoded eight-phase-shift-keyed (CDE8PSK) signal over a satellite link and employs a near-maximum-likelihood decoder at the receiver. The signal can tolerate phase ambiguities that are multiples of π/4 radians, which normally result from the carrier recovery loop at the receiver. However, the carrier recovery loop is not considered here. The high-power amplifier (HPA) at the earth-station transmitter may introduce non-linear distortion to the CDE8PSK signal, and predistortion may or may not be used. Several different earth-stations are assumed to have simultaneous access to a given transponder on the satellite, in an arrangement of frequency division multiple access, but the satellite transponder is assumed to be linear. Thus the CDE8PSK signals that occupy the immediately adjacent frequency bands can introduce adjacent-channel interference (ACI) to the desired CDE8PSK signal. Extensive computer-simulation tests have been carried out to evaluate the effects of non-linear distortion with predistortion, in the presence of ACI, on the tolerance of the modem to additive white Gaussian noise. Four different bandwidths of the transmitted signal are considered, together with three different arrangements of the demodulator. The predistorter operates on the baseband signal at the input to the modulator and assumes a prior knowledge of the HPA characteristics. In all simulation tests, an equivalent baseband model of the transmission system is used, and the results are used to determine the preferred modem design.