Transmitter for direct-to-device connectivity via a satellite swarm

Abstract

A system and method for beamforming including: providing a satellite swarm including radiating elements spread across Ns satellites; determining beamforming weights including a matrix W of vectors, wherein the matrix W operates the radiating elements as a distributed array to realize Nu beams; precoding a beam signal with the beamforming weights to form an overall beam pattern for joint radiation from the radiating elements; and transmitting the overall beam pattern from the radiating elements of the Ns satellites to realize a joint transmission of the Nu beams. An OFDM signal from each of the respective Ns beam pattern may be generated prior to the transmitting. A method for mitigating intra-beam interference at a receiver uses a SISO successive interference cancellation structure wherein joint detection and forward-error correction decoding are applied in an iterative fashion to recover information intended for a device.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.