面向直连蜂窝网络的卫星集群：分布-性能权衡分析
Satellite Swarms for Direct-to-Cell Networks: A Distribution-Performance Trade-off Analysis
- Centre Tecnològic de Telecommunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC/CERCA)（加泰罗尼亚电信技术中心）
- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)（加泰罗尼亚理工大学）
- Huawei Technologies German Research Center（华为技术有限公司德国研究中心）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。
中文总结 AI 辅助
本文研究直连蜂窝应用的二维分布式卫星集群配置，发现增加天线分布可提升系统和速率，且在热点场景增益显著，同时分析了大型分布式集群的实现挑战，推动相关技术研究。
中文摘要 AI 辅助
本研究针对直连蜂窝（D2C）应用，探究二维分布式卫星集群的配置。与以往主要将集群视为整体阵列部署替代方案的研究不同，本文聚焦于利用大型分布式孔径实现的更高空间分辨率。仿真结果表明，在所考虑的场景中，增加卫星平台间的天线分布程度可扩大有效孔径，并在理想运行条件下提升系统和速率。对于均匀分布的用户，增益较为温和；而在包含高用户密度热点的场景中，增益尤为显著。结果进一步显示，用户调度策略不会削弱高度分布式配置的优势，因为此类架构能在覆盖区域（包括热点区域）提供更均衡的速率分布。此外，本文分析了大型分布式集群相关的若干关键实现挑战，包括星间相对定位误差、同步损伤，以及波束成形和用户位置更新速率受限等问题。尽管在本研究考虑的集群配置和场景范围内，性能增益随孔径尺寸持续增加，但这些实际约束可能在中期限制集群规模。不过，观测到的性能增益强烈推动未来针对可扩展同步、定位及数据分发技术的研究，以服务于未来的大型卫星集群。
英文摘要
This work investigates 2D distributed satellite swarm configurations for direct-to-cell (D2C) applications. Unlike previous studies, which primarily considered swarms as deployment alternatives to monolithic arrays, this paper focuses on exploiting the increased spatial resolution enabled by large distributed apertures. Simulation results show that, for the considered scenarios, increasing the level of antenna distribution across satellite platforms enlarges the effective aperture and improves the system sum rate under ideal operating conditions. While gains are moderate for uniformly distributed users, they become particularly pronounced in scenarios including hotspot with high user densities. The results further show that user scheduling strategies do not invalidate the superiority of highly distributed configurations, as these architectures provide a more balanced rate distribution across the coverage area, including hotspot regions. In addition, the paper analyzes several key implementation challenges associated with large distributed swarms, including errors in inter-satellite relative positioning, synchronization impairments, and limited beamforming and user-position update rates. Although within the range of swarm configurations and scenarios considered in this work, performance gains continue to increase with aperture size, these practical constraints may restrict swarm sizes in the medium term. Nevertheless, the observed performance gains strongly motivate further research into scalable synchronization, positioning and data distribution techniques for future large-scale satellite swarms.
