Timing-Aware Satellite Association for Multi-LEO Direct-to-Handset Communications

Abstract: The rapid deployment of large-scale low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations has positioned direct-to-handset (D2H) communications as a key enabler of future non-terrestrial networks. However, the limited link budget of handheld devices makes broadband service delivery challenging, and multi-satellite cooperative transmission is often required to provide sufficient power gain. In practice, such cooperation is severely hindered by asynchronous reception across satellites. This paper analyzes the received-signal model under the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) transmitter structure and shows that satellite-dependent propagation delays prevent simultaneous timing alignment for multiple user terminals (UTs). This timing mismatch induces severe inter-carrier interference (ICI) and inter-symbol interference (ISI), even from the intended signals, which fundamentally constrains the achievable cooperative gain. To address this issue, we propose a timing-aware satellite association strategy that enables cooperation only with satellites expected to satisfy a UT-side timing tolerance, thereby avoiding dominant asynchronous interference by design. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed strategy improves throughput performance compared to single-satellite transmission and fully connected multi-satellite baselines.