Beam Management in LEO Satellite Networks with Asynchronous Interference Mitigation

Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication has been seen as a promising solution for achieving global ubiquitous connectivity and high data rates. However, the propagation delays between satellites and cells are time-varying and significantly different, resulting in asynchronous inter-cell interference. Most existing research assume that the signals from all satellites are received simultaneously, which oversimplifies the interference situation and limits their applicability. To address this challenge, a beam management approach with asynchronous interference mitigation is proposed to improve network throughput. Firstly, a primary serving duration allocation method is developed based on convex optimization, while asynchronous interference is ignored. Subsequently, considering that inter-cell interference can be mitigated by appropriately setting guard periods, a beam scheduling with guard period selection method is designed under given service duration constraints, where conflict graphs are constructed to characterize interference situations. Extensive simulation results validate that our proposed scheme can effectively mitigate asynchronous inter-cell interference and significantly enhance network throughput. Specifically, the network through-put is increased by 20% compared with baselines that ignore asynchronous interference.