Capacity of Interference Exploitation Schemes in Multibeam Satellite Systems

We propose a framework, based on the combined use of single- and multiuser detection, to jointly optimize the achievable rates of two signals sharing the same frequency in the forward link of a multibeam satellite system. We propose then the application of the described framework to two different scenarios of interest. First, we consider a uniform coverage scenario, aimed at maximizing the average throughput per beam in a realistic coverage condition. We compare different solutions, based on alternative frequency reuse schemes and different receiver strategies. We demonstrate that the use of multiuser detection can achieve significant gains over a reference strategy based on single-user detection. Next, we analyze a “hotspot” case, where resources are pulled from empty beams to serve a beam with a high service demand. Also in this case, we compare several strategies and frequency reuse schemes. We show that the best performance is achieved by a scheme adopting 3 colors and single-user detection