The performance of turbo coding over power-controlled fading channel in Ka-band LEO satellite systems

In this paper, the integration of power control and turbo coding is adopted to achieve reliable communications over Ka-band code-division multiple-access (CDMA)-based low earth orbit (LEO) satellite systems. The effect of imperfect power control on the bit error ratio (BER) performance is analyzed, and the upper bounds on BER are also derived for the case of slow and fast imperfect power control. The analytical and simulation results show that power-control error (PCE) degrades the BER performance of turbo-decoded systems significantly in the waterfall region. In the region of error floor, the degradation effect slows down and the BER obtained under imperfect power control eventually converges with the BER under perfect power control. Moreover, in the waterfall region, the correlation characteristics of the PCE fluctuation do not degrade the BER performance as anticipated.