Considerations of digital phase modulation for narrowband satellite mobile communication

The Inmarsat-M system for mobile satellite communication is specified as a frequency division multiple access (FDMA) system, applying Offset Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) for transmitting 8 kbit/sec in 10 kHz user channel bandwidth. We consider Digital Phase Modulation (DPM) as an alternative modulation format for INMARSAT-M. DPM is similar to Continuous Phase Modulation (CPM) except that DPM has a finite memory in the premodular filter with a continuous varying modulation index. It is shown that DPM with 64 states in the VA obtains a lower bit error rate (BER). Results for a 5 kHz system, with the same 8 kbit/sec transmitted bitstream, is also presented.