Analysis of a State Based Approach for Adaptive Coding and Modulation in Mobile Satellite Environments

In the last years the increasing presence of multimedia applications and devices is even requiring higher throughput links with a higher availability. In order to exploit such advanced services, ubiquitous and broadband connections are required. Even if much of populated areas are nowadays covered by terrestrial wireless broadband networks, there is an increasing request of satellite communications able to cover low density populated areas and to fill the coverage gaps. In the last years two novel communication standards specifically suited for mobile satellite communications, i.e., DVB-SH and DVB-RCS NG, have been introduced. Among others, they consider adaptive waveforms techniques for increasing the system reliability and throughput aiming to exploit the variable channel behavior. Adaptive coding and modulation (ACM) belongs to this family of algorithms, by adapting the modulation and coding scheme based on the channel behavior. In this paper we focus on a state adaptive algorithm suited for mobile applications by considering the effect of the mobile speed.