COMETS 21-GHz advanced satellite broadcasting experiments-evaluation of trellis-coded 8-PSK performance

An advanced satellite broadcasting system using 21 GHz has been studied by using the high-power (200 W) and wideband (120 MHz) transponders on the Communication and Broadcasting Engineering Test Satellite (COMETS), which was launched 21 February 1998. A highly effective trellis-coded eight-phase-shift-keying (TC8PSK) modem was developed for the COMETS satellite broadcasting experiments, and this paper describes the degradation in the bit error performance of the TC8PSK modem due to the nonlinear amplification (AM/AM distortion and AM/PM conversion effects), group-delay distortion, and amplitude-frequency characteristics of the satellite transponder. The results of the COMETS experiments and computer simulations indicate that the performance degradation is due primarily to the nonlinear distortion and the amplitude-frequency characteristics of the traveling wave tube amplifiers in the transponder.