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22786
THE GLOBALSTAR MOBILE SATELLITE
SYSTEM FOR WORLDWIDE PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS

Robert A. Wiedeman
Vice President of Engineering
Loral Qualcomm Satellite Services, Inc.
3875 Fabian Way, Palo Alto CA. 94303
(415)-852-6201

Andrew J. Viterbi
Vice Chairman
Qualcomm Incorporated
10555 Sorrento Valley Rd.
San Diego, CA. 92121-1167

1.0 INTRODUCTION The Globalstar system is designed to

operate as a complement to existing local,
Loral Aerospace Corporation along with long-distance, public, private and
Qualcomm Inc. have developed a satellite specialized telecommunications networks.
system which offers global mobile voice Service is primarily designed to serve the
and data services to and from handheld rural and thin route communications needs
and mobile user terminals with omni- of consumers, government users, and
directional antennas. By combining the private networks.
use of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites
with existing terrestrial communications Due to the orbit selection and the use of
systems and innovative, highly efficient CDMA spread spectrum technology the
spread spectrum techniques, the Globalstar number of circuits over a region is
system provides users with low-cost, increased due to multiple satellite
reliable communications throughout the coverage. Each satellite operates as a
world. The Globalstar space segment repeater in space, eliminating complex call
consists of a constellation of 48 LEO setup procedures and on-board processing.
satellites in circular orbits with 750 NM Globalstar has been configured to link the
(1389 km) altitude. Figure 1 shows the mobile user to a terrestrial gateway
global coverage. Each satellite through a single satellite so that the
communicates with the mobile users via system requires no satellite crosslinks.
the satellite-user links and with gateway
stations. Globalstar offers services which are not
currently available, such as world wide
The gateway stations handle the interface cellular roaming. Globalstar service
between the Globalstar network and the offerings will meet the needs of the
PSTN/PLMN systems. Globalstar general public both domestically and
transceivers are similar to currently globally where it is not cost effective to
proposed digital cellular telephones in size provide terrestrial based cellular services.
and have a serial number that will allow
the end user to make and receive calls Signal availability and quality to the user
from or to that device anywhere in the is the most important factor in choosing a
world. technology for MSS services. The user
signal availability is determined by a large

291
number of factors which are statistically of 11 dB. Third, the Globalstar system
developed to determine what the user constellation provides additional mitigation
experiences during a MSS call. For of shadowing and blocking using path
example, a user which is stationary in a diversity. This path diversity is equivalent
clear area will experience a certain to having more margin on a link by link
propagation effect while another user using basis. When these margins are used with
a hand held device while in a vehicle the suburban/rural model for fading,
traveling under a heavily leafed tree shadowing and blocking, the resulting
canopy may experience a different value. availability is shown in Figure 2. The
The Globalstar user receive signal level results show that significant improvement
and transmit power is adjusted to account in availability is provided with path
for impairments. Rural and suburban diversity.
propagation models have been developed
by Vogel of the University of Texas II1 For example, the user equipment in a
which show the probability of needing rural/suburban environment which is
margin in certain conditions. These experiencing a fade will first sense a
models when combined with multiple degradation of the receive frame error
satellite availability (path diversity) and rate. The unit will open loop increase its
elevation angle statistics from the satellite power to maintain quality and send a
constellation determine signal availability. request to the gateway which increases the
forward link power. On the return link
the gateway measures the frame error rate
2.0 CDMA IS OPTIMUM FOR THIS and Eb/No and sends up/down power
SERVICE control commands to the user unit closed
loop. At the same time the uplink signals
Frequency Division Spread Spectrum are being received by a second or third
CDMA (FD/SS/CDMA) provides satellite, since the Globalstar system
optimum and flexible service quality to the provides multiple satellites in view of the
end user. The FD/SS/CDMA modulation user's omni-directional antenna. The
choice allows multiple signal paths from signal level of these alternate paths is
more than one satellite which mitigates measured by the same gateway serving the
fading and blocking. user. The gateway software controls both
the power sent to and transmitted by the
The user is provided signals which are user as well as the usage of the alternate
optimized for the subscriber's environment. signal paths. At a predetermined point,
Link margin is provided to each user depending on the system loading, the
independently as the gateway senses that alternate signal paths are combined by the
it needs margin. User margin is provided gateway receivers improving the received
in three independent ways. First, there is signal from the user. The alternate paths
thermal margin built into each link to are monitored for level and stability and
account for the inherent thermal noise according to preset thresholds the user is
from all sources. Second, a power control commanded to the best alternate path.
ability is built into the hardware which
when activated boosts the power amplifier Link performance is assured by power
output by up to 10 dB in 0.5 dB steps control which maintains the service quality
both under the direction of sensing circuits constant over a wide range of fading,
in the user equipment and under control shadowing and blocking environments.
of the gateway that is handling the call. For satellite systems fading is Rician in
This provides a total "link by link margin" nature and not typified by the Rayleigh

292
 model. Globalstar link budgets provide some higher levels of noisy transmission
adequate margins for Rician fading and loss of signal quality for short periods
conditions while shadowingand blocking is of time.
provided by satellite diversity.
The Globalstar system offers the system
Users in severely degraded situations will operator maximum flexibility in channel
obtain service in excessof that available assignment. Since all frequencies are
from FDMA/TDMA systems. For reused in all of the beams, the interaction
example, a user may be in a situation between gateways is minimized. Since the
where the power control and thermal frequency reuse factor is maximized and
margin of 11 dB has been exhaustedand the traffic load is averaged over several
the user is in need of even more margin. satellites, the utilization of the satellite is
Globalstar's systemwill sensethis situation maximized and system loading as discussed
and the user transferred to another above can exceed 100%. The system, in
satellite which has a less degraded path. addition, has excess circuits available for
handoff and path diversity situations. By
With CDMA there is no "brick wall" in comparison, in FDMA and TDMA the
capacity or signal quality. The system frequencies must be assigned in blocks to
certain beams and since there cannot be
operator has control of the user signals
which are requesting services. The 100% frequency reuse, system efficiency is
Globalstar system has been designed to therefore reduced. Since the system
provide maximum capacityunder modeled efficiency is 100%, the maximum capacity
conditions which represent average to a region may be realized and the
conditions expectedfor the market served. capacity to each country can be
When circuit demand begins to peak the maximized.
system control facilities adjusts the power
distribution to maintain overall signal With CDMA the ability to concentrate
quality, individual signal links continue to circuits in a small region is important for
power control as discussedabove. When emergency and disaster communications.
the system reaches maximum capacity at For these conditions only CDMA has the
a certain quality, several options are flexibility to allow maximum capacity in a
available to the system operator. As small region. Combinations of demand
examples, two of these options are assignment, decreased quality, and other
discussed here. Unlike FDMA or TDMA CDMA techniques, can make thousands
systems where the capacity reaches the of circuits available compared to the "brick
"brick wall" and no further users may be wall" limitation of FDMA/TDMA.
added to the system, the CDMA systems
utilize graceful degradation to maintain The spectrum utilization with CDMA
flexibility. The operator may allow more systems is maximized. Multiple systems
subscribers to occupy the bandwidth, can share the bandwidth with few
coordination factors. International sharing
slightly degrading the overall signal quality
from a Mean Opinion Score of 3.5 to 3 with other CDMA operators requires
or less. Alternatively, the system operator similar sharing coordinating. Since the
can redistribute a portion or all of the system downlink Power Flux Density
users over more of the satellites in view, (PFD) around the world is limited and
thus reducing the blocking and shadowing since operation of uplinks are limited by
path diversity for the users which may EIRP density and health hazard reasons,
need it. During these traffic peaking these parameters can be coordinated
conditions some users may experience within reasonably small limits.

! 293
Considering the downlink sharing, the need to have hot spare satellites on orbit,
capacity of the spectrum is the addition of nor the need to launch individual
aIl systems operating with CDMA, less the replacement satellites on a crash schedule.
inter-system interference. Essentially, this FDMA and TDMA systems, since they
means that there are many more power must only have single satellite coverage of
sources (satellites) in view of the region a user, must replace their failed satellites
that is being served. The degradation to as they fail.
each system is a percentage of its capacity
due to sharing of the interference power Globalstar has high elevation angles in the
between the systems. However, the temperate zones of the world, for example
coordinated result is greater than any the average elevation angle in CONUS is
single system alone. The usage of the up to 55 degrees. The minimum elevation
spectrum by several CDMA systems is angle, occurring only infrequently and for
over twice that of a TDMA system. a very short duration of time is 20 to 32
degrees depending on location. These
The advantage of CDMA to various high elevation angles and path diversity
administrations around the world is the mitigate shadowing and blocking. Reliable
freedom from spectrum segmentation path diversity is provided by 100% two
required for operation of a FDMA or satellite coverage in CONUS, three
TDMA system. Spectrum segmentation, satellite coverage up to 90% of the time
if implemented, results in warehousing of and four-satellite coverage up to 35% of
spectrum. This means that if country A the time.
and country B are attempting to
coordinate systems and one of these is an Globalstar has the lowest path delay of
FDMA or TDMA system and the beams any of the proposed LEO systems with the
cover both countries, either all or in part, maximum path delay, including vocoder
the portion segmented for the FDMA or processing, of less than 100 ms. The
TDMA system is unusable for the second maximum propagation path delay is 18 ms
country even if the first country doesn't for the user-satellite-gateway link; the
bring its system into use. CDMA on the remainder is processing. Since there is no
other hand prevents this warehousing. onboard processing or inter-satellite links,
The full bandwidth is available to both the processing is minimized and the
countries. If one doesn't deploy, the other overall path delay is reduced, providing
just experiences less interference in its excellent quality without the need for echo
system. cancelers, etc.

The implementation method chosen by

3.0 SYSTEM DESIGN FOR LQSS allows an easy extension of
GLOBALSTAR OPTIMIZES THE USE terrestrial cellular developments underway.
OF CDMA Qualcomm Incorporated has developed a
CDMA cellular telephone system which
The advantage of Globalstar is that it uses improves the spectrum efficiency over
simple and reliable satellites. Forty eight analog by a factor of about 15. This
satellites are launched to provide system is being deployed currently in
maximum path diversity in the temperate several wireline cellular systems in the
zones and to handle peak traffic. If there USA. LQSS plans to modify this system
are random failures of several satellites, slightly, to account for increased path
the coverage of the system is not affected delay and effects of doppler, and utilize it
most of the time. Therefore, there is no for satellite delivered cellular telephony.

294
As such, this is the only LEO system loop) to optimize the user's power
proposed which has a heritage for its requirements. The need for excessivelink
gateway and user equipment. margin is thus avoided.

A key element in Qualcomm's terrestrial

system implementation is the use of a 4.0 SUMMARY
Rake receiver which makes use of all
available signal paths to insure that a Globalstar will use a constellation of 48
quality signal is delivered to the user and satellites to provide continuous coverage
the gateway. A Rake receiver makes use of the areas of the world requiring mobile
of the CDMA modulation to receive many connectivity. The Globalstar system is
signal paths simultaneouslyand coherently designed to operate as a complement to
combine them to develop the highest existing local, long-distance,public, private
signal input to the decoder. A multiple and specialized telecommunications
finger receiver is operated, with each networks. Service is primarily designedto
receiver assigned to a particular signal serve the rural and thin route
path to decode. A separate receiver communications needs of consumers,
continuously searchesfor signal paths with government users, and private networks.
the user's code. Once a path is found it Frequency Division Spread Spectrum
is assigned to a receiver finger. Logic CDMA (FD/SS/CDMA) provides
within the receiver reviews the signal optimum and flexible servicequality to the
levels emerging from these receivers and end user allowing multiple signal paths
performs decisions on combining. It is from more than one satellite which
unimportant whether theseare direct paths mitigates fading and blocking. Link
or multipath signals, all signals received margin is provided to each user
are available to be combined. independently as the gateway sensesthat
it needs margin. Path diversity,
The benefits of the usage of two satellite guaranteed by multiple satellite coverage
coverage and the Qualcomm unique is equivalent to having more margin on a
RAKE receiver design, combined with link by link basis. When these margins
mitigation of fading and blocking of the are used for mitigating fading, shadowing
hand held user equipment, are very and blocking, the resulting availability is
important. Consider the case of a user better than a TDMA system with higher
which is shadowed by a propagation margin but with no path diversity.
impairment. At the onset of shadowing
the user would normally be utilizing a The Globalstar system offers the system
single satellite path to a gateway. The operator maximum flexibility without the
second and third satellite paths, although need for difficult synchronization, thereby
present would not be in use. As the allowing many gateways. Since CDMA
shadowing increases the unit senses an maximizesfrequency reuse,the traffic load
increasedframe error rate, makes an open is averaged over several satellites, the
loop power increase and requests power utilization of the satellite is maximized and
control, the gateway responds and begins system loading can exceed 100%. The
closed loop control. The signal level spectrum utilization with CDMA systemsis
remains constant at the shadowedsatellite. maximized. Multiple systems can share
The increased power level will be the bandwidth with few coordinating
transmitted by the second and third factors. International sharing with other
satellites to the gateway and, depending CDMA operators requires similar sharing
on system operation be utilized (closed- coordination. The advantageof CDMA to

295
various administrations around the world
is the freedom from spectrum
segmentation required for operation of a
FDMA or TDMA system which reduces
operational efficiency.

Reference [11

NASA Reference Publication 1274, February 1992; Propagation

Effeas for Land Mobile Satellite System; Overview of
Experimental and Modeling Results, Julius Goldhirsh and
Wolfhard J. Vogel

296