Constellation with optimal LEO spacing for satellite-to-mobile downlink communication

In this paper, we optimize both a very-low Earth orbit (VLEO) satellite mega-constellation and a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite mega-constellation to achieve a high-rank channel matrix in line-of-sight (LOS) conditions for satellite-to-mobile communications. The optimization of these constellations is achieved through the spacing of the satellites in adjacent planes. The significance of the optimization is that it creates a high-rank channel matrix that delivers the spatial gain in the distributed multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO). The distributed MIMO is modeled as the 4 closest satellites to an unmodified mobile phone, where each satellite is assumed to be a single transmit antenna. For each second the satellites fly over the receiver’s location, a Monte Carlo simulation of the Rician flat fading channel was completed to obtain the mean channel to calculate the capacity. The simulations have shown achievable peak data rates of 177.2 Mbps for the n255 frequency band and 140.9 Mbps for the n256 frequency band at VLEO of 360 km and the LEO we obtained peak data rates of 135.1 Mbps and 102.0 Mbps for the n255 and n256 frequency bands respectively.