Random satellite swarms for LEO direct-to-handheld in interference limited regimes

This work evaluates the benefits of using large random single-antenna satellite swarms over traditional monolithically collocated single satellite arrays to serve handheld devices. It demonstrates that large random swarms can provide significant gains in interference limited regimes with large user densities, thanks to their reduced beamwidth and the moderate side lobes resulting from the randomized position of the satellite nodes. These findings have a direct application on the provision of satellite services to high user density hot spot areas. Besides, the operation with extreme narrow beamwidths opens new research challenges like efficient user scheduling or the full coverage of wide field of views.