PROCEEDINGS

THE INSTITUTION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS

Volume 120 Electronics

Spectral-energy dispersal in digital communication-
satellite systems
A. K. Jefferis, B.Sc, C.Eng., M.I.E.E.

Indexing terms: Digital communication systems, Satellite links

ABSTRACT
Communication-satellite systems employing analogue or digital modulation techniques generally require some
means of artificially dispersing their spectra to reduce interference to other services sharing the same frequency
bands. In digital systems, the dispersal can be obtained by the modulo-2 addition of a pseudorandom sequence to
the information signal. Expressions have been derived for the maximum spectral power in the signals of time-
division multiple-access systems employing p.s.k. modulation and using this means of dispersal. The spectral
density due to the preambles in such signals is also determined. An example of the practical application of the
expressions is given.

1 INTRODUCTION except, of course, in the extremely unlikely event that the in-
put information was in some way correlated with the pseudo-
Communication-satellite systems employing analogue modu- random sequence.
lation techniques generally employ a means of artifical
energy dispersal to reduce interference with other services The symbols used for the various p a r t s of the t.d.m.a. signal
sharing the same frequency bands. In systems employing are a s follows (see also Fig. 1):
digital modulation, energy dispersal will also be required,
since certain types of information signal could result in a T = duration of one bit
transmitted radio-frequency signal having strong spectral TF = duration of t.d.m.a. frame
components. These concentrations of energy can cause Tp = duration of preamble
harmful interference to narrow-deviation frequency-modu- TK = duration of information burst of the Kth station
lation systems or other narrowband signals which may be TR = repetition period of the pseudorandom sequence
using the same frequency band as the digital satellite
system. The energy dispersal can be achieved by the TF
modulo-2 addition of a pseudorandom sequence to the trans-
mitted information signal, this process being termed scramb-
ling. The signals are, of course, unscrambled at the re- Tp !! T
ceiver.
UUL
This paper gives expressions for the maximum spectral transmission
power in a time-division multiple-access (t.d.m.a.) satellite Fig.l
system when such energy dispersal is used. Since inter-
ference requirements generally depend on the maximum Modulating signal for one station
power in a specified bandwidth (typically 4 kHz), the spacing
between the spectral lines is also calculated, and will 2 SPECTRAL DENSITY DUE TO INFORMATION
sometimes be relevant. PART OF SIGNALS
The expressions derived relate to phase-shift-keyed (p.s.k.) The signal applied to the scrambler is a continuous stream
modulation with two phases 0 and n, but the effect of higher of zeros. Without energy dispersal, this would have produced
orders of p.s.k. is commented upon. For the analysis, a a radio-frequency spectrum consisting of an unmodulated
t.d.m.a. system 1 is assumed in which the earth stations carrier wave. Modulo-2 addition of the pseudorandom se-
each transmit a burst of modulated carrier for a proportion quence to the all-zero input sequence results simply in the
of an overall frame period T F . Each station's transmitted pseudorandom sequence itself as the signal applied to the
burst is assumed to commence with a preamble consisting modulator. Let us consider the waveform X(t) and the spec-
of modulation by a repetitive 01 pattern for carrier phase trum S(f) of this signal. The amplitudes for binary 1 and 0
and bit-timing recovery, followed by the information signals. are assumed to be +1 and 1, respectively.
(The unique word, which would normally precede the infor-
mation, is ignored here, since it would contribute negligibly Many textbooks on modulation and noise analysis, such as
to the line spectrum of the total signal.) Only the information Reference 2, will give adequate background to the expressions
signal, which follows the preamble, is assumed to be used in this Section.
scrambled by the pseudorandom energy-dispersal signal. Since the sequence is repeated with period TR , we can ex-
The treatment considers the information signal to be a con- press X(t) as a Fourier-series expansion
tinuous stream of zeros applied to the scrambler, since this
is the signal which would produce a worst-case spectrum if
energy dispersal was not used. The effect of different input C n exp (j27mt/TR)
signals would generally be to further randomise the trans- n=-oo
mitted bit stream, and so give even better energy dispersal, T /2
where Cn = J_* X(t) exp (-j27mt/TR)dt
Paper 6923E, first received 23rd June 1972 and in revised
form 12th February 1973 Considering first the spectrum C n m due to the mth pulse of
the sequence
Mr .Jefferis is with the Telecommunications Development
Department, Telecommunications Headquarters, Post Office,
207 Old Street, London ECN 9PS, England H2t/T R )dt
PROC.IEE, Vol. 120, No. 5, MAY 1973 529
where V m is the amplitude of the mth pulse, i.e. +1 or 1. divide the spectrum into two equal parts centred on +fc and
From this, C n m is found to be fc. We therefore obtain
sin (7rnT/TR)
exp j7rn| 1 - (2m - 1)I SS 1 T\rsin{Tr(f-f c )T}
7rnT/TR >(f-f P -
ir(f-fc)T \ c
T
Thus, at frequency n/T R , the amplitude of the spectral com- sin f C )T} n
ponent due to the mth pulse is independent of m, being equal (2)
f c )T C
T^
to
T sin (7rnT/TR) as the spectrum of a carrier 2-phase p.s.k. modulated by
the continuous pseudorandom sequence. An example of such
a spectrum is shown for the positive frequencies only in
The phase angles due to successive pulses, i.e. as n varies Fig. 2. The variations of individual line amplitudes about the
from 1 to T R /T, will be uniformly distributed between 0 and envelope is intended to show the effect of Rn.
2n7T, except that V m will introduce an additional phase of rr
radians when the pulse is a binary 0. lines spaced at I/TR

Because of this uncertainty of IT radians, the summation for

all the pulses will vary from one spectral line to the next, and
can best be defined on a statistical basis. The result has .
approximately a Rayleigh distribution of amplitude, and can f c -l/T fc fL^P f c tl/T
be written as Fig. 2

sin (7rnT/TR) Spectrum of signal p.s.k. modulated by pseudorandom

Cn= = R n V(T R /T) (1) sequence
7mT/TR
m=i

where Rn is a (pseudo) random variable with an r.m.s.
value of unity and whose probability-density function is de-
fined by a normalised Rayleigh distribution
p(R) = 2R exp (-R 2 )
The effect of gating this signal on and off for duration TK in
each frame period T F is further to spread the energy into
many more lines spaced at l / T F . The resultant spectrum
can be obtained by convoluting the spectrum Sx(i) with the
spectrum Se(f) of the gating signal given below:

If R n is omitted from eqn. 1, the expression represents the " T,, m

r . m . s . envelope of the spectrum. Sg(f)= I
l
5 f-
m=-oo r
The value which should be assumed for R n is a matter of
judgment according to the particular situation. The com- The result of the convolution Sx(f) * Sg(f) is shown, for the
plete probability distribution of the spectral lines will be ob- positive frequencies only, in Fig. 3. It is seen that the
tained by convolution of the spectral envelope function with
the function p(R). This has been done for the part of the lines spaced at I / TF
spectrum within n = T R /2T, which corresponds to the
Nyquist bandwidth, and the results are given in Table 1.

TABLE 1
CONVOLUTION OF SPECTRUM WITH RAYLEIGH DISTRI-
BUTION l.,nllll inn..

n
I/TK | / T R
Amplitude
relative to spec- Fig. 3
trum envelope at
n = 0, dB 2 0 +2 +4 +6 +8 Pari o/ spectrum due to information component (segment
shown corresponds to AB in Fig. 2)
Probability that
any particular greatest spectral density occurs in the lines at the carrier
line within the frequency. The amplitude of a line near to +fc is
Nyquist bandwidth
exceeds the
stated amplitude 0 4 3 0*27 0'13 0043 0'0081 0-00063

For most interference calculations, a quasimaximum value

is required, and an appropriate value can be chosen from
Table 1. For example, Rn = 2 (i.e. 6 dB) would give the level
exceeded by just less than 1% of the lines within the Nyquist
bandwidth. Of course, any particular pseudorandom sequence
will not produce exactly these statistics, and, if the actual
sequence is known, its spectrum may be determined directly
if desired.
Eqn. 1 gives the amplitudes of the spectral components. It
can also be used to write down the frequency spectrum S(f)
of the waveform by incorporating the delta function 6(f)
[defined by 6(f) = o at f = 0, 6(f) = 0 elsewhere and
jf_~6(f)df=l];i.e.if
m
X(t) = J_ S(f) exp(j27rft)df
then
sin(TrfT) / n
6f-
S ( f ) =
^ T
The power in this component plus the power in the c o r r e s -
ponding component near fc will therefore be R^TTg/(T R T|)
(normalised relative to the unmodulated carrier power).
This expression gives the maximum spectral power for only
one station of the t.d.m.a. system. When all N stations are
transmitting on the same carrier frequency (but not with
their carriers or clocks exactly in phase), their power
spectra can be added and the power in the largest spectral
component, for unit total power, will be
N
Pi =
I n (3)
K=l
If any stations transmit more than one burst, these should be
treated in the same way as if each burst had come from a
separate station.
If the N stations all have equal bursts, of duration TF/N,
eqn. 3 is reduced to simply

This is the spectrum of the baseband signal. The effect of Pi = (4)

2-phase p.s.k. modulation of a carrier frequency fc will be to TnN
530 PROC. IEE, Vol. 120, No. 5, MAY 1973
The statistics on which the choice of Rn should be based will
generally be the same for the composite signal as for an
individual burst, i.e. as given in Table 1. An exception to
this arises, however, if a pseudorandom sequence much
longer than the typical burst duration is used and different
stations used different parts of this sequence. The effect
will be to reduce the spread of the line amplitudes so that a
smaller Rn would be appropriate. Also, if the spacing be-
tween lines is such that more than one line falls in the
measurement bandwidth, only one of them should be assumed
to be at or near the 'quasimaximum' value.
3 SPACING BETWEEN THE SPECTRAL LINES
Eqn. 3 or eqn. 4 gives the maximum power in the spectral
lines. If interference requirements are specified in terms of
the power within a given bandwidth, such as 4 kHz, it is
necessary also to know the spacing between the lines. While
TR "C TK, i.e. the pseudorandom pattern repeats itself
several or many times during the burst transmitted by the
earth station, the distinct regions of high spectral density
shown in Fig. 3 will be well spaced, and the effect of overlap
between them will be negligible. The spacing between lines
is then l / T F , as shown. As TR increases towards TK, the
overlap between the regions will begin to take effect, but, up
to the point at which TK is equal to TK, the largest change in
power in a small bandwidth due to the overlap will be only
about 0*2 dB (neglecting the highly improbable case that TR
is in exact submultiple of the frame period, when the increase
could be as great as 1 #7 dB). Even if the pseudorandom
generator is capable of producing a sequence which is longer
than TK, it is still likely to be reset to a nominated starting
position at the beginning of every new burst, so that the effect
is the same as if TR = TK. It is therefore concluded that the
spacing between the lines can be taken as l/T F for all T R .
4 EFFECT OF THE PREAMBLE
The spectrum due to the preamble can be determined in just
the same way as for the information part of the signal by con-
voluting the spectrum of the carrier p.s.k. modulated by
alternate 01 with the spectrum of the preamble gating signal,
which will be 1 for duration T p and 0 for duration T F T p .
f c + l/T
Fig. 4
Spectrum due to preamble
The resultant spectrum is shown in Fig. 4, and the power in
the largest of the spectral lines, at frequencies 1/2T rela-
tive to fc, and for all N stations is found to be
Tp\ 2
Pp = (5)
P TDN
The phase relationship between the lines in the spectra due
to the information and the preamble will generally be such
that power addition of the 2 will be appropriate. However,
from Figs. 3 and 4, it can be seen that the sum of the two
spectra may have a maximum at either fc or at fc 1/2T,
depending on the relative magnitudes. It can be deduced that,
/ 4 \) Pi, the maximum spectral
if P (eqn. 5) is less than/1
D The maximum spectral power due to the preamble will be
power will still be at the carrier frequency and the pre-
amble can be ignored. Otherwise, the maxima will occur
near fc 1/2T (since l / T p will generally be much greater
than 1/TR), and each maximum will be
(6)
5 EFFECT OF MULTILEVEL P.S.K.
The precise spectra of multilevel p.s.k. signals will depend
on how they are generated. However, the spectral shape will
be approximately the same as that for a 2-phase system of
the same bandwidth, particularly where the maximum spectral
PROC.IEE, Vol. 120, No. 5, MAY 1973
density is concerned. Thus the expression of eqn. 3 can still
be used provided T is interpreted as the symbol duration
rather than the bit duration (symbol duration equals bit
duration multiplied by log2m for an m-phase system). Also,
care should be taken in deriving the duration TR of the
pseudorandom sequence, since a common method of imple-
mentation is to form an m-phase signal by combining the
appropriate number of 2-phase signals operating at a lower
bit rate. Thus, for example, if a 4-phase system operating at
50 Mbit/s achieved its energy dispersal by means of a 127
bit pseudorandom code applied to each of two parallel bit
streams fed to 2-phase modulators, the duration of the
pseudorandom sequence for the transmitted signal would
correspond to 254 bits.
The spectrum due to the preamble of an m-phase system can
be obtained using eqn. 5 provided that the preamble pattern is
such as to give simple alternation between two phases
separated by IT radians. Otherwise, the expression appro-
priate to the particular preamble pattern would need to be
derived. In no case, however, could the maximum spectral
density due to a preamble exceed that given by eqn. 5 by
more than 3 dB.
6 EXAMPLE OF APPLICATION TO A PRACTICAL
SYSTEM
The system chosen to illustrate the application of the ex-
pressions has the characteristics shown in Table 2.
TABLE 2
modulation 4-phase p.s.k.
bit rate 50 M bit/s
frame duration T F 125 ps
number of stations N 10 (equal burst durations)
preamble pattern 001100...
preamble length 50 bits
pseudorandom sequence length 511 bits
Using this information we can derive Table 3.
TABLE 3
symbol duration T 0g04 /is
preamble duration T 1 /is
duration of one station's burst TK 12-5 /is
duration of pseudorandom sequence TR 10*2 /is
Since the bursts transmitted by the ten stations are equal in
length, we can use eqn. 4 for the maximum spectral power
Pi = = 0-0004R2
Let us assume that it is sufficient to find a quasi-maximum
value of spectral power, exceeded by no more than 1% of
lines; then an appropriate value to assume for RJJ is about
5-8 dB (i.e. 20 log 10 R n = 5*8), obtained by interpolation from
Table 1.
Thus P^ = 28*2 dB relative to unmodulated carrier power.
given by eqn. 5 as
4 /Tp\2
P pP = 2 - N = 0-00026
* \TF/
i.e.35*8 dB relative to unmodulated carrier power. Clearly,
the preamble will not affect the maximum spectral density in
this case, so that the resultant value for use in interference
calculations would be 282 dB, say 28 dB for practical pur-
poses.
The spacing between the lines is l/T F , which is 8 kHz in this
case. If interference calculations are based on the maximum
power in any 4 kHz bandwidth, the result is therefore still
-28 dB.
531
7 CONCLUSIONS
Eqn. 3 or eqn. 4, modified when necessary in accordance with
eqn. 6, can be used to compute the maximum spectral power
of t.d.m.a. transmissions using p.s.k. modulation with pseudo-
random energy dispersal. These equations apply to the com-
posite t.d.m.a. transmission from the satellite. The maxi-
mum spectral power of the transmission from a single earth
station can also be found from eqn. 4 by putting TK = 0 for
all the other stations. The spectral lines will be spaced at
the reciprocal of the t.d.m.a. frame period. The value as-
sumed for Rn in eqn. 3 will depend on the application; putting
RJJ = 1 will give the average power in lines near the peak of
the spectrum envelope. Putting RJJ = 16 or B^ = 2 would
account for all but the largest 4'3% or 0'8%, respectively, of
the lines within the Nyquist bandwidth.
532
8 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Acknowledgment is made to the. Senior Director of Develop-
ment of the British Post Office for permission to publish
this paper.
9 REFERENCES
1 WITHERS, D. J., and JEFFERIS, A. K.: 'TDMA for the
INTELSAT global system', AIAA 4th communications
satellite systems conference, Washington, USA, 1972
2 SCHWARTZ, M.: 'Information transmission, modulation
and noise' (McGraw-Hill, 1970)
PROC.IEE, Vol. 120, No. 5, MAY 1973