Uplink power control based on receiver noise measurements in satellite communication systems

The authors describe a novel procedure for uplink power control in a multicarrier satellite communication system. The purpose of uplink power control is to compensate for rain attenuation so that all carriers are at the same power level at the input of the satellite nonlinear amplifier. The presence and amount of rain attenuation is predicted by continuous monitoring of the receiver noise power. Attractive features of the proposed scheme include its conceptual simplicity, ease of implementation, applicability to a wide variety of scenarios, and avoidance of the undesirable overhead, coordination, and delay requirements associated with previously used methods.