Link Performance Analysis of Multi-User Detection Techniques for W-band Multi-Beam Satellites

The existing literature about broadband satellite communications clearly indicates the exploitation of Extremely High Frequency (EHF) bandwidth portions and the massive employment of multi-beam satellites as key enabling technologies for “terabit connectivity” in the Space. In particular, increasing the reuse factor of frequency sub-bands, it is possible to boost multi-beam satellite capacity, provided that co-channel interference is conveniently reduced at the terminal side. To this aim, suitable multi-user detection techniques are required. In this paper, we shall analyze the link performance of basic theoretical multi-user detection techniques, namely: optimum Maximum-Likelihood (ML) and sub-optimum Minimum Mean Squared Error (MMSE) detection, in the framework of a W-band (70-110 GHz) multi-gigabit geostationary satellite system. At our best knowledge, some partial analyses have been proposed in literature, mostly in terms of reachable capacity and, anyway, not considering the multi-gigabit W-band case. The results shown in this paper will be the basis for the practical implementation of multi-user detection techniques for real-world multi-beam terminals that will have to consider stringent constraints in terms of affordable computational complexity.