Advanced Fade Mitigation Techniques for Q/V Band SATCOM Systems

Adaptive fade mitigation techniques, such as smart gateway diversity (SGD), are essential in addressing atmospheric fading affecting the operation of high throughput and very high throughput satellite systems at Ka-band and beyond. Specifically, the Q/V-band, offering up to 5 GHz of available spectrum, is very attractive for future high data rate services, but it is especially susceptible to atmospheric attenuation, with rain posing a significant challenge. This paper presents a simulation model for the design and performance assessment of a Q/V-band SATCOM (satellite communication) system. The model consists of two primary modules: (1) a physical model of the propagation channel, which integrates numerical weather predictions (NWPs) with a radiopropagation simulator and a temporal downscaling module; (2) a system simulator that operates SGD alongside traditional fade mitigation techniques, that is, uplink power control (ULPC) for the uplink and adaptive coding and modulation (ACM) for the downlink. The latency of SGD emerges as a critical parameter that constrains system performance (e.g., carrier to noise plus interference ratio and data rate) when compared to an ideal system capable of real-time traffic switching. This study explores the impact of varying SGD latency times on the performance of a Q/V-band SATCOM system, providing insights into system behavior under realistic conditions.