Adaptive UPPC System for High Frequency Satellite Communications

The use of more and more high frequency bands is presently one of the major trends in the satellite communications field. Several important advantages can be achieved by increasing frequency against a sensible impact with atmospheric effects, in particular with the heavy fading induced by rain precipitations. In the last few years, several methods based on adaptive techniques to counteract the rain attenuation have been proposed. This paper presents a new UPPC system concept based on the idea of estimating the actual up-link to down-link attenuation ratio (the so-called frequency scaling factor), by using the received satellite beacon and the earth station transmitted signal, as relayed by satellite. To this purpose, an estimation procedure based on a Parameter-Updating Prediction Algorithm (PUPA) is proposed. Simulation results for the case of 20/30 GHz frequency bands are provided.