MIMO channel modeling and transmission techniques for multi-satellite and hybrid satellite–terrestrial mobile networks

The Quality of Service (QoS) in land mobile satellite (LMS) communications drops drastically in the presence of shadowing and multipath fading. This paper studies two promising multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) schemes, along with specific transmission techniques, aimed at overcoming this problem. First, specific proposals for a dual-satellite distributed MIMO scheme are studied based upon delay-tolerant and spectral-efficient schemes. As a second alternative, a hybrid satellite–terrestrial scheme is studied with specific proposals for MIMO processing. In order to carry out a performance assessment the paper addresses related MIMO satellite propagation channel modeling issues which lead to a new mathematical model to accommodate the multi-satellite transmission. In both cases, we quantify and conclude the MIMO gains in terms of bit error rate (BER) and spectral efficiency for urban and suburban environments. The transmitted air-interfaces in both proposed MIMO schemes are DVB-SH standard compatible. The analytical results have been validated by means of Monte Carlo simulations.