CDM-570A/570AL Satellite Modem with Optional Packet Processor
Revision 5
Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) Option P–7 MN-CDM570A
P.4 An Existing Satellite ACM Scheme
The best-known scheme for ACM-over-Satellite is covered in the DVB-S2 specification (EN 302307)
ratified by ETSI in March 2005. While primarily for digital video broadcast, the DVB-S2
specification also encompasses two-way interactive services.
A summary of the main transmission aspects follows:
• Four modulation types are defined: QPSK, 8PSK, 16APSK and 32APSK.
• The primary FEC type is low-density parity check coding (LDPC), concatenated with a
short BCH code.
• The 8PSK, 16APSK, and 32APSK modulation types use interleaving.
• There are ten code rates defined: 1/4, 1/3, 2/5, 1/2, 3/5, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5, 5/6, 8/9 and 9/10,
which depend on the modulation type and other system requirements.
• A single FEC block may be 64800 bits (normal, referred to as 64k blocks) or 16200 bits
(short, referred to as 16k blocks)
• Adaptive coding and modulation is defined for optimizing satellite transponder capacity.
Hughes Network Systems (Germantown, MD) have commercially deployed DVB-S2 with ACM
over satellite.
P.5 Disadvantages of DVB-S2
While the scheme defined by DVB-S2 is undoubtedly very effective for many broadcast and
higher data rate applications, it is definitely not a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Some of the
disadvantages are as follows:
• Excessive latency. The so-called short blocks are too long for low latency IP
applications at low data rates. This is exacerbated by the addition of interleaving.
• Overly complex in its implementation. The design of DVB-S2 dictated that all FEC
blocks should be constant in bits. This means that for each ModCod, there are a varying
number of symbols. This then makes the task of synchronization a much more
demanding task. Also, because of the limitations of tracking the higher-order modulations
in a very low SNR environment, so-called pilot symbols were added in order to aid
tracking.
• Concatenated BCH code added to mitigate the problem of error rate ‘flaring’ and
‘flooring’. This is no longer necessary. Since the introduction of the original LDPC/BCH
scheme, an enormous amount of research has been done on the design of LDPC codes.
Most importantly, however, LDPC codes can now be designed that yield almost
equivalent coding gain, but with considerably shorter block lengths.
• In an ACM mode, no overhead channel was defined by DVB-S2 for the purpose of
reporting SNR metrics to the originating end. It has been left to individual equipment
manufacturers to decide their own method. This illustrates that all ACM systems, DVB-S2
or not, are proprietary. In addition, it implies that additional bandwidth needs to be
consumed for the SNR reporting, and this is not accounted for in the code rate.
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