Link adaptation in mobile satellite links: field trials results

We describe the experiment that was carried out to communicate a Mobile Platform and a Ground Station through a Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite. The physical layer in both ends, based on the specifications of the Satellite Component of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (S-UMTS), was implemented using Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology. The Mobile Terminal was boarded in both an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a car for the field trials. The ultimate goal was to test the practical performance of different physical layer adaptive techniques in the return link, and evaluate the open loop signal to noise ratio (SNR) contribution to the link adaptation algorithms.