ME-SSA: An advanced random access for the satellite return channel

The paper analyzes the performance of an advanced random access scheme for the return channel of a satellite communication link. The scheme is an evolution of the E-SSA scheme proposed in [1], [2] that couples an asynchronous Spread Spectrum Aloha access with Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) at the central Gateway (GW) receiver to increase the channel throughput. Main feature of the proposed scheme is the exploitation of an approximate linear Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) detector in place of the conventional Single User Matched Filter (SUMF) detector used in E-SSA. A gain of 50% in terms of spectral efficiency is achieved over E-SSA in most typical scenarios.