Pilot-aided coherent uplink for mobile satellite CDMA networks

A pilot-aided coherent uplink transmission scheme is proposed for mobile satellite communications at L-band. The scheme is designed to enhance link performance as compared to coded noncoherent M-ary orthogonal modulation, while maintaining small envelope fluctuations and low complexity. A rigorous analysis is performed for the proposed technique, when used in conjunction with a direct-sequence code-division multiple-access convolutionally encoded binary phase shift keying link, in a Rice-fading channel with satellite diversity. The pilot-aided scheme has been extensively simulated, accounting for finite interleaving in slow fading and nonideal carrier frequency recovery. The results show a significant performance gain with respect to noncoherent schemes designed for similar links, which goes up to 1.8 dB for 9.6 kb/s services with slow moving users exploiting dual-satellite diversity.