Channel capacity of cooperative grouped satellites with array based transmission

In order to improve the system capacity of cooperative grouped satellites, we considered the transmission mode of equipping the satellites with antenna arrays. Channel condition of downlink with maximum channel capacity was analyzed. Implementation approaches to the maximum channel capacity were put forward. Influences of system parameters to the channel capacity were researched. The results show that the channel capacity changes with the ground antenna distance periodically. The changing cycle of the channel capacity curve is in inverse proportion to the number of satellites (sat-number), to the cosine value of the angle between the ground array and an east-west line and to the angular distance between satellites (sat-angular-distance). The envelope of the channel capacity curve changes with the ground antenna distance periodically as well in a multi-satellites multi-antennas environment. An arrangement strategy of ground antennas in a multi-satellites multi-antennas environment was proposed to decrease the ground antenna distance and to lower the requirement of the ground array measurement accuracy as well, which was verified by the simulation results.