DVB-S2 Satellite Experiment Results

With a large number of profiles and options, the DVB-S2 standard offers several possibilities to move towards the Shannon capacity bound and more in general to reduce the delivery cost per bit in real system scenarios, compared to previous generations of air interface. The information bit delivery cost with high quality of service is a key factor of success for both broadcast and interactive high throughput satellite systems. This paper presents the main results and findings of extensive European Space Agency (ESA) funded DVB-S2 test campaigns performed by satellite on three complementary test platforms, addressing broadcast, professional and interactive profiles. Different satellite transponders operating in C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band and located in Europe and in Canada have been used encompassing both single beam and multi beam satellite coverage. The performance of high order modulations has been measured, as well as the effects of payload impairments with and without mitigation techniques such as modulator pre-distortion and receiver equalisation, the impact of phase noise, etc. Particular effort has been dedicated to investigate the performance of Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) in real and emulated conditions. The paper also provides recommendations concerning different tradeoffs to be made when operating DVB-S2 carriers, like optimization of ACM margins, amplifier back-off setting and insertion of pilot symbols.