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Broadcasting systems have to deal with channel variability in order to offer the best rate to the users. Hierarchical modulation is a practical solution to provide different rates to the receivers in function of the channel quality. Unfortunately, the performance evaluation of such modulations requires time consuming simulations. We propose in this paper a novel approach based on the channel capacity to avoid these simulations. The method allows to study the performance of hierarchical and also classical modulations combined with error correcting codes. We will also compare hierarchical modulation with time sharing strategy in terms of achievable rates and indisponibility. Our work will be applied to the DVB-SH and DVB-S2 standards, which both consider hierarchical modulation as an optional feature.

We investigate the design of a broadcast system where the aim is to maximise the throughput. This task is usually challenging due to the channel variability. Modern satellite communications systems such as DVB-SH and DVB-S2 mainly rely on time sharing strategy to optimize throughput. They consider hierarchical modulation but only for unequal error protection or backward compatibility purposes. We propose in this article to combine time sharing and hierarchical modulation together and show how this scheme can improve the performance in terms of available rate. We present the gain on a simple channel modeling the broadcasting area of a satellite. Our work is applied to the DVB-SH standard, which considers hierarchical modulation as an optional feature.

We investigate the design of a broadcast system in order to maximise the throughput. This task is usually challenging due to the channel variability. Forty years ago, Cover introduced and compared two schemes: time sharing and superposition coding. Even if the second scheme was proved to be optimal for some channels, modern satellite communications systems such as DVB-SH and DVB-S2 mainly rely on time sharing strategy to optimize the throughput. They consider hierarchical modulation, a practical implementation of superposition coding, but only for unequal error protection or backward compatibility purposes. We propose in this article to combine time sharing and hierarchical modulation together and show how this scheme can improve the performance in terms of available rate. We introduce the hierarchical 16-APSK to boost the performance of the DVB-S2 standard. We also evaluate various strategies to group the receivers in pairs when using hierarchical modulation. Finally, we show in a realistic use case based on DVB-S2 that the combined scheme can provide throughput gains greater than 10% compared to the best time sharing strategy.