Capacity of interference exploitation schemes in multibeam satellite systems

In this paper, 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 then propose 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 (FR) 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 FR schemes. We show that the best performance is achieved by a scheme adopting three colors and single-user detection.