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About Luis Emiliani
Expertise
Strengths - Satellite link design and analysis - Vsat network design and analysis - Propagation aspects for terrestrial and satellite links - ITU-R P recommendations Can not help with: - Questions related to TV receivers, TV kits, or specific networks such as DirecTV or DISH - Antenna pattern synthesis, RF MoM analysis, S-parameters.

Experience
My experience is in satellite communication networks and terrestrial microwave links.
 
   

You are here:  Experts > Industry > Satellite Communications > Satellite Communications > Regarding downlink power

Satellite Communications - Regarding downlink power


Expert: Luis Emiliani - 8/5/2008

Question
QUESTION: Dear Luis,

i want to know that, what is the relationship between EbNo and BER and what is the effect of changing Modulation and FEC on these two parameters.

ANSWER: Hi
thanks for asking

the relationship between BER and Eb/no depends on the type of modulation selected. Actually, what you get from the analysis of the constellation diagram of each modulation is the probability of decoding a symbol in error, which is a function of the energy of the symbol. from there you can have the probability of errors on the bit stream, related to the Eb/No.
in wikipedia you will find a description of the expressions used for various modulation types

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-shift_keying

it all depends on the distance between symbols in the constellation diagram. if you increase the number of symbols (from QPSK to 8PSK you change from 4 to 8 symbols), they are closer to each other and the probability of error is higher for the same Eb/No
so you need more power to make sure the errors in the channel do not affect the decoding of the symbols.
if you look at 256-TCM things are really really bad!

one way of improving performance is to protect the signals by adding redundancy. this is called coding, and you can build codes that detect errors, and codes that detect and correct errors. parity check is a form of error detecting, and block codes are a means of detecting and correcting errors. the amount of errors that can be corrected depends on how you create the code and on the number of bits that differ from coded word to coded word (the distance of the code)

since the signal is protected, you can transmit with less power and still decode everything correctly, at the expense of an increase in bandwidth.

this improvement is called the coding gain.

so the effect of changing codes results in a reduction in the Eb/No required for a given BER threshold, compared to the uncoded case.

if you change modulation and reduce the number of symbols, you will get a similar effect. if you do both at the same time (say, from QPSK 3/4 coded to BPSK 1/2 coded) the improvement is the sum of both (one is the change in required Eb/No because of the increase in symbol distance, and the other is the change due to coding gain).

the performance of codes is evaluated via simulations so normally you do not find a closed expression for the probability of error of a coded modulation. normally you see graphs displaying the improvement.

i hope this helps
best regards

luis


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Dear Luis,
i want to know that how the FEC coding technique detect and correct errors in the channel.Can you please explain it in the form of packet level in which how the codes are embbed to the system are mentioned.

ANSWER: Hi,
there are some tutorials on the web that can help you understand what it is all about.

try these:

http://home.netcom.com/~chip.f/viterbi/tutorial.html

http://www.commsdesign.com/design_center/broadband/design_corner/showArticle.jht...

http://www.danvillesignal.com/files/compdsp_Jacobsen_FEC.ppt

i hope these links help. if you need anything, just post again.

best regards

Luis

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Dear Luis, hi how are you.Asking you question after long time.
Could you please tell me that as during uplink, ku band require less power to pump as compared to c band..but at satellite end during downlink,they used to pump high power in ku band as compared to c band.
What is the reason behind it.

Answer
hi,
i am not sure i understand your question.
is your question why less power is needed in ku band for an uplink (compared to c band) but more power is needed for a downlink in ku compared to c band?

i am not sure that is the case. perhaps amplifier sizes are smaller in ku compared to c band for a specific link, but that is because antenna gain is higher so the overall eirp might be higher. in any case, more eirp is needed in ku band because of the extra attenuation (free space and atmospheric) when compared to c band.

downlink is the same, twtas on board are perhaps the same, but antenna gain is much higher (spots versus global beams), so the EIRP in ku band is higher than in c band..

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