A Novel Forward-Link Multiplexed Scheme in Satellite-Based Internet of Things

Satellite communication has the potential to play a key role in many applications of Internet of Things (IoT). In this paper, we consider a satellite-based IoT and investigate the technology that can improve the spectral efficiency. In general, one beam in satellite systems serves one user. To serve multiple users, time division multiplexing or frequency division multiplexing is usually used. In this paper, we propose a novel forward-link multiplexed scheme, by which the signals of different users can be transmitted simultaneously using the same frequency band. Specifically, at the transmitter, we first map each combination of the users' constellation points to a higher-order constellation point, which is referred to as constellation coding, and then transmit such higher-order modulation signals. At the user side, after receiving and detecting the transmitted signal, each user obtain its own signal by the corresponding demapping, which is referred to as constellation decoding. The total system capacity over an additive white Gaussian noise channel is analyzed in this paper. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can greatly improve the spectral efficiency.