Impulse-radio waveforms for MM-wave satellite communications: Potential benefits and open issues

Impulse radio has been historically proposed for short-range Ultra-Wideband (UWB) transmission. However, thanks to the well-known properties of easy generation and robust detection in presence of linear and nonlinear distortions, such kind of waveforms have been considered also for long-range broadband satellite communications, in particular exploiting Extremely High Frequency (EHF) bands (Q-V band and W-band). In this paper, we shall review the basic concepts of satellite transmission in the millimeter wave domain and we shall analyze the potential benefits that can be obtained by the use of some specific impulse radio waveforms (Gaussian pulses with Time Hopping or Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum, Prolate Spheroidal Wave Functions, etc.) in such an application framework. The discussion of some preliminary experimental results and the analysis of the open technical issues will conclude the paper.