Beamforming and Scheduling Techniques for Multibeam DVB-S2X Over Rainy Fading Satellite Channel

The extension of the digital video broadcasting second generation standard (DVB-S2X) for transmission over satellite has been introduced recently with its novel superframe structure, which is a key enabler for applying interference management techniques, such as precoding, to multibeam high throughput geosynchronous (GEO) satellite systems operating in the Ka-band. This paper presents the first full design of DVB-S2X system with multi-user-multiple-input-single-output (MU-MISO DVB-S2X), with most of its modulation and coding schemes (MODCODs), over rainy fading channels. The atmospheric impairments on the Ka-band satellite channel are considered, especially the rainfall effect, which is the most effective atmospheric impairment that degrades the system performance. Two rainy fading channels are designed, one for tropical region and the other for temperate region, using real rain data from these areas. In addition, the user scheduling influence on the bit error rate (BER) performance of MU-MISO DVB-S2X system is tested and compared with the conventional MISO DVB-S2X system. Simulation results show that the proposed system can achieve a significant improvement in terms of BER performance with at least 20 dB for 128 amplitude and phase shift keying (128APSK) MODCOD over the tropical channel and 14 dB for 32APSK MODCOD over temperate channel when the number of users is six. The enhancement in error rates proves that MU-MISO DVB-S2X system with scheduling can be the key solution for DVB-S2X system performance degradation in fading channels, especially rainy fading channels.