Space MIMO: Direct Unmodified Handheld to Multi-Satellite Communication

Abstract: This paper examines the uplink transmission of a single-antenna handsheld user to a cluster of satellites, with a focus on utilizing the inter-satellite links to enable cooperative signal detection. Two cases are studied: one with full CSI and the other with partial CSI between satellites. The two cases are compared in terms of capacity, overhead, and bit error rate. Additionally, the impact of channel estimation error is analyzed in both designs, and robust detection techniques are proposed to handle channel uncertainty up to a certain level. The performance of each case is demonstrated, and a comparison is made with conventional satellite communication schemes where only one satellite can connect to a user. The results of our study reveal that the proposed constellation with a total of 3168 satellites in orbit can enable a capacity of 800 Mbits/sec through cooperation of $12$ satellites with and occupied bandwidth of 500 MHz. In contrast, conventional satellite communication approaches with the same system parameters yield a significantly lower capacity of less than 150 Mbits/sec for the nearest satellite.