This paper designs dynamic onboard signal processing schemes in a multiple gateway multi-beam satellite system where full frequency reuse pattern is considered among the beams and feeds. In particular, we deploy on-board Joint Precoding, Feed selection and Signal switching mechanism (JPFS) so that the following advantages are realized, I) No need of Channel State Information (CSI) exchange among the gateways and satellite, since the performance of precoding is highly sensitive to the quality of CSI, II) In case one gateway fails, rerouting signals through other gateways can be applied without any extra signal processing, III) Properly selecting on-board feed/s to serve each user which generates maximum gain toward corresponding user, IV) Flexibly switching the signals received from the gateways to requested users where each user can dynamically request traffic from any gateway, and V) Multiple users with multiple traffic streams can be dynamically served at each beam. However, deploying such JPFS architecture imposes high complexity to the satellite payload. To tackle this issue, this study aims at deploying JPFS that can provide affordable complexity at the payload. In addition, while increasing the data demand imposes extensive bandwidth resources requirement in the feeder link, the proposed JPFS design works efficiently with available feeder link resources even if the data demand increases. The proposed design is evaluated with a close-to-real beam pattern and the latest broadband communication standard for satellite communications.

This paper presents designing precoding technique at the gateway of a multibeam mobile satellite systems, enabling full frequency reuse pattern among the beams. Such a system brings in two critical challenges to overcome. The inter-beam interference makes applying interference mitigation techniques necessary. Further, when the user terminals are mobile the Channel State Information (CSI) becomes time-varying which is another challenge to overcome. Therefore, the gateway has only access to an outdated CSI, which can eventually limit the precoding gains. In this way, employing a proper CSI estimation mechanism at the gateway can improve the performance of the precoding scheme. In this context, the objectives of this paper are two folds. First, we present different CSI feedback mechanisms which aim at preserving a lower CSI variations at the gateway. Then, we develop the corresponding precoding schemes which are adapted with the proposed CSI feedback mechanisms. To keep the complexity of the proposed precoding schemes affordable, we consider a maritime communication scenario so that the signals received by mobile user terminals suffer from a lower pathloss compared to the Land Mobile communication. Finally, we provide several simulations results in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed precoding techniques.

This paper aims to design joint precoding and onboard beamforming at a multiple gateway multibeam satellite system. Full frequency reuse pattern is considered among the beams and each gateway serves a cluster of adjacent beams such that multiple clusters are served through a set of gateways. However, two issues are required to be addressed. First, the interference in both user and feeder links is the bottleneck of the whole system and employing interference mitigation techniques is essential. Second, as the data demand increases, the ground and space segments should employ extensive bandwidth resources in the feeder link accordingly. This entails embedding an extra number of gateways aiming to support a fair balance between the increasing demand and the corresponding required feeder link resources. To tackle these problems, this paper studies the impact of employing a joint multiple gateway architecture and on-board beamforming scheme. It is shown that by properly designing the on-board beamforming scheme, the number of gateways can be kept affordable even if the data demand increases. The proposed beamforming scheme can partially mitigate the interference in the user link. While the user and feeder link channels vary over time, this paper focuses on designing fixed beamforming which is sufficiently robust to the variations in both channels, leading to keep payload complexity low. Moreover, Zero Forcing precoding technique is employed at the gateways to reject the interference in the feeder links as well as it helps the proposed fixed on-board beamforming by partially equalizing the interference in user link.

This paper present On-Board Precoding (OBP) for a multiple gateway multibeam satellite system where full frequency reuse pattern is employed at both user and feeder links. By reducing the Channel State Information (CSI) round-trip delay to half, OBP offers significant benefits in the emerging multiple gateway scenario in terms of lower gateways coordination. However, two critical issues need to be addressed: (a) interference in both user and feeder links is the bottleneck of the whole system and employing interference mitigation techniques is essential, (b) clear push towards non-adaptive (fixed) payload implementation, leading to low computationally complex satellite architectures. In order to fulfill requirements (a) and (b), this paper studies the impact of employing a fixed OBP technique at the payload which is sufficiently robust to the variations in both user and feeder link channels. In addition to (a) and (b), the provided simulation results depict the performance gain obtained by our proposed OBP with respect to the conventional interference mitigation techniques in multiple gateway multibeam systems.

This paper aims to design joint on-ground precoding and on-board beamforming of a multiple gateway multibeam satellite system in a hybrid space-ground mode where full frequency reuse pattern is considered among the beams. In such an architecture, each gateway serves a cluster of adjacent beams such that the adjacent clusters are served through a set of gateways that are located at different geographical areas. However, such a system brings in two challenges to overcome. First, the inter-beam interference is the bottleneck of the whole system and applying interference mitigation techniques becomes necessary. Second, as the data demand increases, the ground and space segments should employ extensive bandwidth resources in the feeder link accordingly. This entails embedding an extra number of gateways aiming to support a fair balance between the increasing demand and the corresponding required feeder link resources. To solve these problems, this study investigates the impact of employing a joint multiple gateway architecture and onboard beamforming scheme. It is shown that by properly designing the on-board beamforming scheme, the number of gateways can be kept affordable even if the data demand increases. Moreover, Zero Forcing (ZF) precoding technique is considered to cope with the inter-beam interference where each gateway constructs a part of block ZF precoding matrix. The conceived designs are evaluated with a close-to-real beam pattern and the latest broadband communication standard for satellite communications.

Interference is identified as a critical issue for satellite communication (SATCOM) systems and services. There is a growing concern in the satellite industry to manage and mitigate interference efficiently. While there are efficient techniques to monitor strong interference in SATCOM, weak interference is not so easily detected because of its low interference to signal and noise ratio (ISNR). To address this issue, this paper proposes and develops a technique which takes place on-board the satellite by decoding the desired signal, removing it from the total received signal and applying an Energy Detector (ED) in the remaining signal for the detection of interference. Different from the existing literature, this paper considers imperfect signal cancellation, examining how the decoding errors affect the sensing performance, derives the expressions for the probability of false alarm and provides a set of simulations results, verifying the efficiency of the technique.

Hybrid Analog-Digital transceivers are employed with the view to reduce the hardware complexity and the energy consumption in millimeter wave/large antenna array systems by reducing the number of their Radio Frequency (RF) chains. However, the analog processing network requires power for its operation and it further introduces power losses, dependent on the number of the transceiver antennas and RF chains, that have to be compensated. Thus, the reduction in the power consumption is usually much less than it is expected and given that the hybrid solutions present in general inferior spectral efficiency than a fully digital one, it is possible for the former to be less energy efficient than the latter in several cases. Existing approaches propose hybrid solutions that maximize the spectral efficiency of the system without providing any insight on their actual energy requirements/efficiency. To that end, in this paper, a novel algorithmic framework is developed based on which energy efficient hybrid transceiver designs are developed and their performance is examined with respect to the employed number of RF chains. Solutions are proposed for fully and partially connected hybrid architectures. Numerical results provide insight on when a hybrid transceiver is the most energy efficient solution or not.

Hybrid analog-digital transceivers are employed with the view to reduce the hardware complexity and the energy consumption in millimeter wave/large antenna array systems by reducing the number of their radio frequency (RF) chains. However, the analog processing network requires power for its operation and it further introduces power losses, dependent on the number of the transceiver antennas and RF chains that have to be compensated. Thus, the reduction in the power consumption is usually much less than it is expected and given that the hybrid solutions present in general inferior spectral efficiency than a fully digital one, it is possible for the former to be less energy efficient than the latter in several cases. Existing approaches propose hybrid solutions that maximize the spectral efficiency of the system without providing any insight on their energy requirements/efficiency. To that end, in this paper, a novel algorithmic framework is developed based on which energy efficient hybrid transceiver designs are derived and their performance is examined with respect to the number of RF chains and antennas. Solutions are proposed for fully and partially connected hybrid architectures and for both single- and multi-carrier systems under the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing modulation. Simulations and theoretical results provide insight on the cases, where a hybrid transceiver is the most energy efficient solution or not.

In conventional cognitive radio systems, the secondary user employs a “listen-before-talk” paradigm, where it senses if the primary user is active or idle, before it decides to access the licensed spectrum. However, this method faces challenges, with the most important one being the reduction of the secondary user’s throughput, as no data transmission takes place during the sensing period. In this context, the idea of simultaneous spectrum sensing and data transmission is proposed. This paper studies a system model where this concept is obtained through the collaboration of the secondary transmitter with the secondary receiver. First, the secondary receiver decodes the signal from the secondary transmitter, removes it from the total received signal, and then carries out spectrum sensing in the remaining signal in order to determine the presence/absence of the primary user. Different from the existing literature, this paper considers the imperfect signal cancellation, evaluating how the decoding errors affect the sensing reliability, and derives the analytical expressions for the probability of false alarm. Finally, numerical results are presented illustrating the accuracy of the proposed analysis.

In this work, a directional modulation-based technique is devised to enhance the security of a multi-antenna wireless communication system employing M-PSK modulation to convey information. The directional modulation method operates by steering the array beam in such a way that the phase of the received signal at the receiver matches that of the intended M-PSK symbol. Due to the difference between the channels of the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper, the signals received by the eavesdropper generally encompass a phase component different than the actual symbols. As a result, the transceiver which employs directional modulation can impose a high symbol error rate on the eavesdropper without requiring to know the eavesdropper's channel. The optimal directional modulation beamformer is designed to minimize the consumed power subject to satisfying a specific resulting phase and minimal signal amplitude at each antenna of the legitimate receiver. The simulation results show that the directional modulation results in a much higher symbol error rate at the eavesdropper compared to the conventional benchmark scheme, i.e., zero-forcing precoding at the transmitter.

In this paper, we consider the cognitive satellite uplink where satellite terminals reuse frequency bands of Fixed-Service (FS) terrestrial microwave links which are the incumbent users in the Ka 27.5–29.5 GHz band. In this scenario, the transmitted power of the cognitive satellite terminals has to be controlled so as to satisfy the interference constraints imposed by the incumbent FS receivers. We investigate and analyze a set of optimization frameworks for the power and rate allocation problem in the considered cognitive satellite scenario. The main objective is to shed some light on this rather unexplored scenario and demonstrate feasibility of the terrestrial-satellite co-existence. In particular, we formulate a multi-objective optimization problem where the rates of the satellite terminals form the objective vector and derive a general iterative framework which provides a Pareto-optimal solution. Next, we transform the multi-objective optimization problem into different single-objective optimization problems, focusing on popular figures of merit such as the sum-rate or the rate fairness. Supporting results based on numerical simulations are provided which compare the different proposed approaches.

The demand for wider bandwidths has motivated the need for wireless systems to migrate to higher frequency bands. In line with this trend is an envisaged deployment of Ka-band (or mmWave) cellular infrastructure. Further, to improve the spectral efficiency, developing full-duplex radio transceivers is gaining momentum. In view of this move, the paper proposes the possibility of reusing the satellite feeder uplink band in the full-duplex small cells. The motivation for such a reuse is two-fold :(a) there is virtually no interference from the small cells to the incumbent in-orbit satellite receiver, and (b) directive feeder antennas, with possibly additional isolation and processing causing negligible interference to the small cells. The presented interference analysis clearly supports the proposed coexistence.

Herein, we study the spectral coexistence of Geostationary (GEO) Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) downlink and Broadcasting Satellite Services (BSS) feeder links in the Ka-band (17.3 – 18.1 GHz) which is primarily allocated for BSS feeder links. Firstly, a novel cognitive spectrum exploitation framework is proposed in order to utilize the available band efficiently. Subsequently, based on the interference analysis carried out between these systems, two cognitive approaches, namely Carrier Allocation (CA) and Beamforming (BF), are investigated under the considered framework assuming the availability of an accurate Radio Environment Map (REM). The employed techniques allow the flexibility of using additional shared carriers for the FSS downlink system along with the already available exclusive carriers (19.7 – 20.2 GHz), thus increasing the overall system throughput. It is shown that a significant improvement in the per beam throughput as well as in the beam availability can be achieved by applying CA and BF approaches in the considered scenario.

A fundamental problem facing the next generation of Satellite Communications (SatComs) is the spectrum congestion and how the scarce spectral resources are allocated to meet the demand for higher rate and reliable broadband communications. In this context, this paper addresses the cognitive satellite uplink where satellite terminals reuse frequency bands of Fixed-Service (FS) terrestrial microwave links which are the incumbent users in the Ka band. In this scenario, the transmit power of the satellite terminals has to be controlled such that the total aggregated interference at the FS system is kept below some acceptable threshold. In this paper, we review simple and efficient power allocation techniques available in the literature and, with slight adaptations, we evaluate them to the proposed satellite uplink and terrestrial FS co-existence scenario. The presented numerical results highlight the tradeoff between the level of channel state information and the rates that can be achieved at the satellite network.

Interference in wireless networks degrades the signal quality at the terminals. However, it can potentially enhance the secrecy rate. This paper investigates the secrecy rate in a two-user interference network where one of the users, namely user 1, needs to establish a confidential connection. User 1 wants to prevent an unintended user of the network from decoding its transmission. User 1 has to transmit such that its secrecy rate is maximized while the quality of service at the destination of the other user, user 2, is satisfied, and both user's power limits are taken into account. We consider two scenarios: 1) user 2 changes its power in favor of user 1, an altruistic scenario, and 2) user 2 is selfish and only aims to maintain the minimum quality of service at its destination, an egoistic scenario. It is shown that there is a threshold for user 2's transmission power that only below or above which, depending on the channel qualities, user 1 can achieve a positive secrecy rate. Closed-form solutions are obtained to perform joint optimal power control. Further, a new metric called secrecy energy efficiency is introduced. We show that in general, the secrecy energy efficiency of user 1 in an interference channel scenario is higher than that of an interference-free channel.

Distributed spectrum sensing improves the detection reliability of a cognitive radio network but generally comes at the price of a large power consumption. Since cognitive radios are generally low-power sensors with limited batteries, a combined censoring and sleeping scheme is considered as an energy-efficient algorithm for distributed spectrum sensing. Each sensor switches off its sensing module with a specific sleeping rate. When the sensor is on, a censoring policy is employed to send the sensing result to the fusion center. The result is only transmitted, if it is deemed to be informative. Hence, the energy consumption of each sensor, including the sensing and transmission energies, is reduced. The underlying sensing parameters are derived by minimizing the maximum average energy consumption per sensor subject to a lower-bound on the global probability of detection and an upper-bound on the global probability of false alarm. We analyze the problem for the OR and the AND rule and provide a performance analysis for a case study based on the IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee standard. It is shown that the combined censoring and sleeping scheme achieves a significant energy saving compared to the case where no censoring or sleeping is taken into account.

Wideband spectrum sensing improves the agility of spectrum sensing and spectrum hand-off in cognitive radio systems. In this paper, a distributed wideband spectrum sensing technique over adaptive diffusion networks is proposed. Considering unknown and different channels between the primary and the cognitive users, an averaged received power spectrum across all the cognitive users is estimated by each user using diffusion adaptation techniques. This averaged power spectrum estimate is reliable enough for the users to perform spectrum sensing and make a decision regarding the presence or the absence of the primary user. The simulation results show that the detection performance of the system improves with the number of iterations. Further, a satisfactory detection performance at low SNRs is achieved after a few iterations, which is a desired characteristic for cognitive radio systems. Finally, it is shown that the cooperative technique outperforms the non-cooperative one in terms of estimation accuracy and detection performance.

Reliable and agile spectrum sensing as well as secure communication are key requirements of a cognitive radio system. In this paper, secrecy throughput of a cognitive radio is maximized in order to determine the sensing threshold, the sensing time, and the transmission power. Constraints of the problem are defined as a lower-bound on the detection probability, an upper-bound on the average energy consumption per time-frame, and the maximum transmission power of the cognitive radio. We show that the problem can be solved by an on-off strategy where the cognitive radio only performs sensing and transmits data if the cognitive channel gain is greater than the average eavesdropper channel gain. The problem is then solved by a line-search over sensing time. Eventually, the secrecy throughput of the cognitive radio is evaluated employing the IEEE 802.15.4/Zig-Bee standard.

Distributed spectrum sensing enhances the detection reliability of a cognitive radio network. However, this comes at the price of a higher energy consumption. To solve this problem, a combined censoring and sleeping scheme is considered where the cognitive radios switch off their sensing module with a specific sleeping rate in each sensing period. The awake cognitive radios send their local decisions to the fusion center only if it is deemed to be informative. The fusion center either employs the OR or the AND rule to make the final decision about the presence or absence of the primary user. This paper investigates which rule performs better in terms of energy efficiency under various conditions. The underlying sensing parameters are derived by minimizing the maximum average energy consumption per sensor subject to a constraint on the probabilities of false alarm and detection. This way, it can be ensured that the spectrum opportunities are utilized efficiently while the primary users are not interfered with. A case study based on IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee is considered for performance evaluation. It is shown that significant energy savings can be obtained by employing combined censoring and sleeping.

Reliable spectrum sensing is a key functionality of a cognitive radio network. Cooperative spectrum sensing improves the detection reliability of a cognitive radio system but also increases the system energy consumption which is a critical factor particularly for low-power wireless technologies. A censored truncated sequential spectrum sensing technique is considered as an energy-saving approach. To design the underlying sensing parameters, the maximum {average energy consumption per sensor} is minimized subject to a lower bounded global probability of detection and an upper bounded false alarm rate. This way both the interference to the primary user due to miss detection and the network throughput as a result of a low false alarm rate are controlled. {To solve this problem, it is assumed that the cognitive radios and fusion center are aware of their location and mutual channel properties.} We compare the performance of the proposed scheme with a fixed sample size censoring scheme under different scenarios and show that for low-power cognitive radios, censored truncated sequential sensing outperforms censoring. It is shown that as the sensing energy per sample of the cognitive radios increases, the energy efficiency of the censored truncated sequential approach grows significantly.

Optimization of hard fusion spectrum sensing using the k-out-of-N rule is considered. Two different setups are used to derive the optimal k. A throughput optimization setup is defined by minimizing the probability of false alarm subject to a probability of detection constraint representing the interference of a cognitive radio with the primary user, and an interference management setup is considered by maximizing the probability of detection subject to a false alarm rate constraint. It is shown that the underlying problems can be simplified to equality constrained optimization problems and an algorithm to solve them is presented. We show the throughput optimization and interference management setups are dual. The simulation results show the majority rule is optimal or near optimal for the desirable range of false alarm and detection rates for a cognitive radio network. Furthermore, an energy efficient setup is considered where the number of cognitive radios is to be minimized for the AND and the OR rule and a certain probability of detection and false alarm constraint. The simulation results show that the OR rule outperforms the AND rule in terms of energy efficiency.

We consider a two-stage sensing scheme for cognitive radios where coarse sensing based on energy detection is performed in the first stage and, if required, fine sensing based on cyclostationary detection in the second stage. We design the detection threshold parameters in the two sensing stages so as to maximize the probability of detection, given constraints on the probability of false alarm. We compare this scheme with ones where only energy detection or cyclostationary detection is performed. The performance comparison is made based on the probability of detection, probability of false alarm and mean detection time.