Electronics and Communications Engineering Program

ECE422: Advanced Electronic Systems

Lecture 9

▪ TDMA

Dr. Sawsan Abdellatif 1

➢ Time division multiple access (TDMA) is a technique in which different Earth
stations in the satellite’s footprint make use of the transponder by using a single
carrier on a time division basis.

▪ Different Earth stations transmit traffic bursts in a period

time-frame called the TDMA frame. During the burst, each

Earth station has the entire transponder bandwidth.

▪ The traffic bursts from different Earth stations are

synchronized so that all bursts arriving at the transponder

are closely spaced but do not overlap.

▪ The transponder works on a single burst at a time and

retransmits back to Earth a sequence of bursts. All Earth

stations can receive the entire sequence and extract the

signal of their interest. 2

TDMA Advantages
▪ Suitable for digital transmission (assembled/reassembled into/from bursts)
▪ No intermodulation products
▪ TWT amplifier can operate at maximum power output (saturation) level.
▪ Changes in time plan is under software control in contrary to FDMA, where
modifications to hardware are required.

TDMA Disadvantages
▪ complex and expensive Earth station equipment
▪ stringent timing and synchronization requirements.

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➢ The satellite receives at its input a set of bursts from a large number of Earth
stations. This set of bursts is called the TDMA frame.

➢ TDMA frame starts with a reference burst, from a reference station, followed by
traffic bursts from various Earth stations with a guard time between them.

➢ Traffic bursts are synchronized to the reference burst to fix their timing reference.

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Reference burst

➢ The reference burst does not carry any traffic information and is used to provide
timing references to various stations accessing the TDMA transponder.

Traffic burst

➢ Different stations accessing the satellite transponder may transmit one or more
traffic bursts per TDMA frame and position them in the frame according to a burst
time plan that coordinates traffic between various stations.

➢ The timing reference for the location of the traffic burst is taken from the time of
occurrence of the reference burst. With this reference, a station can locate and
then extract the traffic burst intended for it.

Guard Time

➢ Different bursts are separated from each other by a short guard time, which
ensures that the bursts from different stations accessing the satellite transponder
do not overlap. 5
TDMA Burst Structure

Reference Burst: one part [preamble]

Traffic burst: Two parts [preamble, information]

Preamble:

is sequence of bits to synchronize the burst and to carry management and control
information.

Preamble consists of:

(a) Carrier and clock recovery sequence
(b) Unique word
(c) Signalling channel.
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Carrier and Clock Recovery Sequence:

Helps receiving ES to establish accurately the carrier signal and bit rate of each burst.

Unique Word (UW):

▪ In the reference burst, UW allows the ES to locate the position of the received
TDMA frame.

▪ In the traffic burst, UW provides an accurate time reference for the burst position in
the frame. It also provides a timing marker (identify start and finish of the
message).

▪ It’s obvious that, the unique word should have a high probability of detection
(missing it means missing the entire traffic).

Signaling Channel: used to carry out system management and control functions.

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➢ TDMA frame efficiency is a measure of the fraction of the total frame time
allocated for transmission of traffic data.

traffic bits overhead bits

𝜂= =1−
total bits total bits

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➢ Frame efficiency should be as high as possible. This can be done by two methods

1) Reducing the overhead portion of the frame (but, this cannot be done arbitrarily:)

▪ Carrier and clock recovery sequence must be long enough to provide stable
acquisition of the carrier and to minimize the ill effects of inter-burst
interference.

▪ Guard times should be long enough to allow for differences in transmit timing
inaccuracies and variation in the range of the satellite.

2) Increasing the frame length. (However, there is an upper limit:)

▪ Larger frames require larger buffer memories.

▪ Larger frames add to the propagation delay.

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Example:
A TDMA frame and burst structure has the following parameters:
▪ TDMA frame length = 20 ms
▪ Length of carrier and clock recovery sequence = 352 bits
▪ Length of unique word = 48 bits
▪ Length of signaling channel of reference burst= 1086 bits
▪ Length of signaling channel of traffic burst=534 bits
▪ Guard time = 64 bits

Each of 10 stations in the network transmits two traffic bursts in each frame and each frame
contains two reference bursts. The TDMA burst bit rate is 90 Mbps (𝑅𝑇𝐷𝑀𝐴 ). Determine the
following:
(a) Length of the reference burst preamble (in bits)
(b) Length of the traffic burst preamble (in bits)
(c) Total number of overhead bits
(d) Frame efficiency

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Solution:
(a) The reference burst contains only the preamble with carrier and clock recovery sequence,
unique word, signaling channel of reference burst.
The length of the reference burst preamble = 352 + 48 + 1086= 1486 bits.

(b) The preamble of the traffic burst contains the carrier and clock recovery sequence, unique
word, signaling channel of traffic burst preamble.
The length of the traffic burst preamble = 352 + 48 + 534 = 934 bits.

(c) There is a total of 22 bursts per frame (2 reference bursts and 20 traffic bursts),
The total guard time per frame= 22 × 64 = 1408 bits.
The total number of overhead bits= 1486 × 2 + 934 × 20 + 1408 = 2972 + 18 680 + 1408
= 23 060 bits.

(d) The total number of bits in the frame = 90 × 106 × 20 × 10−3 = 1 800 000 bits.
The frame efficiency = [(1 800 000 − 23 060)/1 800 000] × 100% = 98.72 %.
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➢ The channel capacity of a frame, which is also the channel capacity of the
transponder being accessed by the frame, can be found from a knowledge of the
frame efficiency and the bit rates.

Let 𝑅𝑏 be the bit rate of a channel, and let there be a total of 𝑛 channels shared between all the
earth stations accessing the transponder. The total incoming traffic bit rate to a frame is 𝑛𝑅𝑏 .
The traffic bit rate of the frame is 𝜂𝐹 𝑅𝑇 , and therefore:
𝑛𝑅𝑏 = 𝜂𝐹 𝑅𝑇𝐷𝑀𝐴
𝜂𝐹 𝑅𝑇𝐷𝑀𝐴
𝑛=
𝑅𝑏
Example:
Calculate the voice-channel capacity for TDMA-frame in previous example, given that the voice-
channel bit rate is 64 kb/s.
Solution:
𝜂𝐹 𝑅𝑇𝐷𝑀𝐴 0.9872 × 90 × 106
𝑛= = = 1388 channels
𝑅𝑏 64 × 103
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 FDMA network

For simplicity, the input bit rate 𝑅𝑏

and [EIRP] are assumed to be the
same for each earth station.

𝑅TDMA > 𝑅𝑏
TDMA network
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➢ Because the TDMA earth stations have to transmit at a higher bit rate compared
with FDMA, a higher [EIRP] is required:

𝐸𝑏 𝐶
= − [𝑅]
𝑁0 𝑁0

, where [R] is equal to [𝑅𝑏 ] for an FDMA uplink and [𝑅TDMA] for a TDMA uplink.

Assuming required same 𝐸𝑏 /𝑁0 for both TDMA and FDMA uplinks, an increase in
[𝑅] requires a corresponding increase in 𝐶/𝑁0 . Assuming same [LOSSES] and satellite
[G/T], the increase in 𝐶/𝑁0 can be achieved by an increase in the earth station [EIRP], so:

[𝐸𝐼𝑅𝑃] 𝑇𝐷𝑀𝐴 − 𝐸𝐼𝑅𝑃 𝐹𝐷𝑀𝐴 = [𝑅TDMA ] − [𝑅b ]

For the same earth station antenna gain:

[𝑃] 𝑇𝐷𝑀𝐴 − 𝑃 𝐹𝐷𝑀𝐴 = [𝑅TDMA ] − [𝑅b ]

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➢ For small satellite business systems it is desirable to be able to operate with
relatively small earth stations, which suggests that FDMA should be the mode of
operation.

➢ On the other hand, Large satellite systems that have large ES prefer TDMA
because it permits more efficient use of the satellite transponder by eliminating the
need for backoff.

➢ This suggests sometimes to operate a hybrid system in which FDMA is the uplink
mode of operation, with the individual signals converted to a TDM format in the
transponder before being amplified by the TWTA. This would allow the
transponder to be operated at saturation as in TDMA. Such a hybrid mode of
operation would require the use of a signal-processing transponder.

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Parameter FDMA TDMA

Technique Sharing the BW of satellite Sharing time of satellite

transponder transponder

Mode of data Continuous Signals in bursts

Capacity of system Low High

Flexibility Low High

Synchronization Not required Required

Data rates Low High

Power Requirement Low High

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Thanks for attention

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