Super-framing: A powerful physical layer frame structure for next generation satellite broadband systems

Following the definition of commercial requirements in different satellite communication market segments, the satellite communications technical module of the Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) took the mandate to develop the extension of the second generation DVB System for satellite broadcasting and unicasting (DVB-S2) standard in order to achieve higher efficiencies without introducing fundamental changes to the complexity and structure of DVB-S2. In this paper, we focus on a new powerful physical layer frame structure, known as Super-Frame (SF), which has been adopted as optional waveform container in Annex E of the recently approved DVB-S2 eXtension standard specifications. The main contribution of this paper is to provide the rationale, design choices, potential applications and performance gains of the SF structure with particular emphasis on the context of satellite broadband systems. In order to demonstrate the satisfaction of the stated requirements to the SF approach, analytical results of the SF performance are complemented by the performance results obtained from an end-to-end testbed and prototype design of modulator and demodulator featuring the SF generation and detection capability. The prototype devices are able to operate at a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios and at high symbol rates.