Minimizing Latency in Low Symbol Rate

DVB-S2 Applications

Wallace A. Ritchie WALLY. RITCHIE @ GMAIL . COM

Deltona, FL 32738 USA
Abstract Radio Service Satellites operating at microwave frequen-
cies from HEO (High Earth Orbit) and LEO (Low Earth
Most of the Applications for the DVB-S2 (Dig-
Orbit). DVB-S2 is also of interest for operation in the Am-
ital Video Broadcasting) standard operate at rel-
ateur Radio Service microwave and UHF frequencies on
atively high symbol rates where the inherent la-
the ground.
tencies introduced by FEC decoding are of little
concern. The normal operating range for DVB-
S2 in broadcast applications is typically 10 to 1.1. Commercial Video Broadcast Configuration
30 MBaud. There are however some applica- In commercial video broadcast applications the satellite
tions, in particular Radio Amateur Satellite Ser- system is generally designed to maximize the QEF (Quasi
vice applications, where symbol rates well be- Error Free) data rate for economic Earth terminals in the
low 1 MBaud are of interest. At these lower 60 cm to 90 cm range operating in Ku band. Using DVB-
symbol rates the latency inherent in FEC decod- S2 a single carrier from the satellite can provide multiple
ing the relatively large DVB-S2 frames can be of HD and SD television broadcast channels through a single
significant concern, particularly when interactive transponder. With DVB-S2, a 30 MBaud sample rate fits
two-way voice communication is involved. This nicely within a standard 36 MHz transponder bandwidth
paper discusses the various latencies associated providing more than 60 Mbit/s of QEF transport for mul-
with DVB-S2 applications and several methods tiple MPEG streams. These signals are easily received on
that are available to reduce such latencies for ap- the ground using mass produced low cost LNBs mounted
plications operating in the 80 kBaud to 1 MBaud on small dishes combined with low cost ASIC (Application
range. Specific Integrated Circuit) based set top boxes.

1.2. Amateur Radio Satellite System Configuration

1. Introduction
In Amateur Radio Satellite Service applications the
Amateur Radio Satellite Service Transponders will be- transponder bandwidths are significantly narrower, ap-
gin operating from GEO (Geosynchronous Earth Orbit) in proaching 10 MHz at the high end and 100 kHz at the low
2018 with the upcoming launch of the Qatar Satellite Com- end. The available DC power is often well below that avail-
pany’s Es’hail-2 Satellite (ESHAILSAT, 2015). In addition able within a commercial satellite - typically less than 100
to its Ku and Ka transponders providing commercial ser- W and often 5 W or less. Optimizing the system around the
vice, Es’hail-2 will carry a pair of transponders operating available DC power typically requires operation of the RF
in the Amateur Radio Satellite Service bands. The pair in- Final Amplifier at or near saturation. This generally dic-
cludes a so-called wideband transponder with a bandwidth tates single carrier operation on the downlink. To close the
of 8 MHz and a narrowband transponder with a bandwidth link with small stations, the system design may require a
of 250 kHz. Both transponders will have uplinks in S- symbol rate well below that of normal DVB-S2 Broadcast.
Band and downlinks in X-Band. The narrowband linear
transponder will support operation in narrowband analog 1.3. Why DVB-S2?
and digital modes. The wideband linear transponder is in-
tended to support up to 2 or 3 DVB carriers. Other AM- The second generation Digital Television standard, DVB-
SAT GEO satellites are in the planning stages. There is S2 (ETSI, 2014), was designed to support both broadcast
also increasing interest in utilizing DVB-S2 for Amateur TV and other applications e.g. IP transport. DVB-S2
is both flexible and high performance. Its forward error
correction, based on a combination of LDPC (Low Den-
Proceedings of the 7 th GNU Radio Conference, Copyright 2017 sity Parity Coding) and BCH (Bose, Chaudhuri, and Hoc-
by the author(s). quenghem) coding, provides performance very close to the-
 Minimizing Latency in Low Symbol Rate DVB-S2 Applications

oretical limits. With 100s of millions of terminals, there is of the uplinks is demodulated and error corrected by the
wide availability for much of the equipment. This includes satellite’s onboard multi-channel receiver. The individual
economical ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) payload data from all channels is then multiplexed onto the
devices that perform nearly all of the required functions. single downlink. Uplink and downlink can use entirely dif-
The actual standard documents are also widely available ferent modulation and forward error correction schemes.
at no cost (DVB). All of these factors argue strongly for
In this paper we are concerned only with downlinks oper-
adapting DVB-S2 for Amateur Radio Service applications.
ating with DVB-S2. While digital uplinks will introduce
their own added latencies, these are relatively small as the
1.4. Satellite Latency frames are far shorter than those of DVB-S2.
Geo-synchronous orbits are located directly above the
equator and approximately 40 km above the Earth’s sur- 2. DVB-S2 Signal Formats
face. The transmission delay of the uplink and downlink
signal to or from a particular location on the surface is on DVB-S2 has a flexible signal format that allows a single
the order of 130 ms in each direction. This results in a min- carrier to be utilized with modulation and coding that can
imum one-way station to station delay on the order of 260 vary on a frame by frame basis. All DVB-S2 carriers trans-
ms. The inherent round trip delay, without introducing any mit continuous back to back frames. With VCM (Vari-
added latency in the electronics, is on the order of 520 ms able Coding and Modulation) the modulation scheme and
or roughly 1/2 second. For two-way interactive speech this coding can be varied with every frame. The modulation
means that when a speaker stops talking it takes at least 1/4 scheme and coding formats for DVB-S2 range from QPSK
second before the other party hears the pause. Even if that with 1/4 rate FEC all the way to 32APSK with 9/10 FEC.
party replies immediately it will be 1/2 second before the The C/N (Carrier to Noise) required to receive QEF frames
first party hears the start of that reply. These delays are in these formats ranges from about -2 dB to +16 dB. This
known to be objectionable for telephone like service. In spans an 18 dB range in receive station performance. For
many cases, the two parties will end up talking and pausing reference, this is approximately the difference between an
at the same time causing an annoying interruption to the antenna aperture of 0.6 vs 4.5 meters. Using DVB-S2 with
conversation. VCM, a single carrier can simultaneously serve a wide
range of station capabilities ranging from small dishes or
For two-way, push-to-talk voice communication, half sec- patch antennas capable of receiving 1/4 rate QPSK - to
ond round trip delays are generally considered acceptable much larger dishes able to receive 32APSK with 9/10 FEC.
- but just barely so. Added delays measured in seconds, The trade-off for operation at lower C/N (i.e. with smaller
however, are often considered unacceptable to most users. dishes) is a lower bit efficiency. In DVB-S2, these bit effi-
For satellites in LEO, the inherent transmission delays are ciencies range from 0.25 to 2.35 bits/symbol, a 9 to 1 range.
relatively short. However, adding seconds of delay can ren-
der even these links unacceptable. 2.1. Error Correction for QEF
The added latencies from FEC decoding, and methods for In video broadcasting using DVB-S2, a single carrier nor-
mitigating them, are the focus of this paper. mally occupies a full 36 MHz transponder bandwidth op-
erating at a symbol rate of about 30 MBaud. For broadcast
1.5. System Configuration applications, each frame will typically contain 64800 raw
bits of data. This includes both the payload data bits and
In commercial applications DVB-S2 is used in a so-called the additional bits required for error correction. DVB-S2
”bent pipe” transponder configuration. The DVB-S2 sig- is designed to deliver QEF transport which is essential for
nal originates on the ground, arrives on the uplink after highly compressed digital television where even a single
130 ms delay, is amplified and frequency translated to the bit error can corrupt the quality of the video. QEF is also
downlink, and arrives on the ground after another 130 ms necessary for IP where a single bit error will invalidate an
delay. The added delay at the satellite is minimal. The entire IP packet causing both retransmission and added de-
AMSAT-DL Phase 4A transponder on Es’Hail-2 also oper- lay. QEF transport is realized in DVB-S2 by devoting a
ates in this fashion. Future AMSAT microwave satellites significant fraction of the transmitted bits to error correc-
may use an all-digital regenerative repeater in place of the tion. This ranges from 10% to 75% of the transmitted bits.
traditional bent-pipe transponder. A regenerative repeater
operates in a somewhat different fashion. The downlink is a
2.2. Latency
single DVB-S2 carrier that originates not on the ground but
at the satellite. This single downlink multiplexes the data In DVB-S2 both the data bits and the error correction bits
received from multiple narrowband digital uplinks. Each are spread over the frame. The entire frame must be avail-
 Minimizing Latency in Low Symbol Rate DVB-S2 Applications

able to the FEC decoder in order to begin the error cor- formats. The 72000 symbol fixed delay described in the
rection process. To maintain the continuous data flow, the previous section is a consequence of the length (in sym-
error correction process for one frame must normally be bols) of the normal size (64800 bit) frame coded in QPSK
completed before the next frame has completely arrived. (2 bits per symbol). By restricting frames to the short
Demodulation and error correction together impose a typ- (16200 bit) frame size we can reduce the longest frame to
ical delay through a DVB-S2 demodulator ASIC that is 8100 symbols. Adding pilots and PLHEADER, the maxi-
on the order of 72000 symbols. This typically fixed de- mum length short frame will then be 8370 symbols. At 80
lay is the result of the implied requirement for handling kBaud the delay for a single frame is now 105 ms.
the worst case sequence of frames over the full supported
It is always necessary to buffer a complete demodulated
range of modulation schemes and frame sizes. Generally,
frame as the FEC decoder generally requires all of the sym-
two frames of the longest possible size must be buffered in
bols of the frame to begin decoding. This will always add
order to maintain a continuous data flow under the worst
a delay equal to the 105 ms transmission duration of the
case sequencing of variable sized frames.
frame at 80 kBaud. If it were still necessary to buffer an
For QPSK with the normal frame size of 64800 bits with additional frame, the added delay would be about 210ms.
pilots1 the length of each frame is 32400 symbols, plus an However, it is possible to eliminate the need for this second
additional 792 symbols of pilots, plus 90 symbols of PL- full frame buffer as we will discuss below.
HEADER2 for a total of 33282 symbols. The typical 72000
symbol fixed delay allows for the storage of two complete 3.1. LLR Values
QPSK long frames plus several thousand additional sym-
bols in the demodulator in front of the FEC decoder. At the DVB-S2 demodulation does not directly produce digital
moment the ASIC begins transferring the error corrected ”bits.” Rather, the demodulator proper produces a soft de-
output bits of a frame it will have the entire decoded frame cision LLR (Log Likelihood Ratio) for each individual bit.
buffered for output plus the complete subsequent frame that An LLR is a typically 6-bit value that represents the proba-
will just be beginning the process of forward error correc- bility that a particular bit is a zero divided by the probably
tion. A few thousand additional symbols will be buffered that the bit is a one. So the 8100 QPSK data symbols of
in the signal processing stages of the demodulator inf front a short frame are decoded by the demodulator into 16200
of the FEC decoder. In other words, from the IQ sample of LLR values, one for each bit. The FEC decoder then pro-
the device to the output of the corresponding data bits from cesses these LLR values to correct all of the payload data
the device there is a fixed 72000 symbol delay. bits of the frame. For short frames, the number of payload
bits can range from 3072 bits for Rate 1/4 FEC to 14232
The 72000 symbols delay from demodulation and FEC de- bits for Rate 8/9 FEC3 .
coding at 30 MBaud amounts to a latency of only 2.4 ms.
This is only a small fraction (1%) of the GEO transmission 3.2. FEC Decoder
delay (240 ms) and is of little consequence. At 3 MBaud
the added latency rises to 24 ms which is still a modest The FEC decode process in a typical ASIC device must ob-
10% of the transmission delay. However, at 80 KBaud the viously be able to operate at the maximum rates supported
added latency amounts to a whopping 900 ms! This brings by the device. A device that supports 45 MBaud and 8PSK
the round trip delay to 2.3 seconds for GEO. For LEO the (3 bits per symbol) must be capable of FEC decoding at
delay is still a significant 1.82 seconds. If we wish to realize 135 million LLRs per second. A device that supports two
the 11 dB or so C/N improvements that can result from op- such channels from a single decoder must support decoding
eration at lower symbol rates, we need to find an approach at a rate of 270 million LLRs per second. A decoder with
that can reduce this added latency to acceptable levels. a performance of 270 million LLRs per second can process
a single frame in a very short time, far less the transmis-
sion time for a short frame at 80 kBaud. When only FEC
3. Latency Reduction Approach is considered, the 16200 LLRs in a QPSK short frame can
Commercial ASIC devices are generally focused on broad- be fully processed in as little as 60 µsec consuming only a
cast applications. While some newer devices support many tiny fraction of the capacity of the decoder. Given this high
of the non-broadcast features of DVB-S2, including lower level of FEC decoding performance, the added latency for
symbol rates, the basic architectures of the devices must FEC decoding can be potentially reduced to a few millisec-
generally remain compatible with all common broadcast onds. Harnessing a high performance ASIC decoder for
this task can bring the total added latency down to the 110
1
Pilot blocks are optionally added to frames to aid in synchro- ms range for an 80 kBuad symbol rate.
nization.
2 3
The PLHEADER flags the frame boundary and indicates the The 9/10 FEC rate is not supported for short frames.
modulation and coding for the frame.
 Minimizing Latency in Low Symbol Rate DVB-S2 Applications

With this approach the one-way delay (up and down) for still be buffered before FEC decoding can commence and
GEO can be reduced from more than a second to about 370 this requires about 105 ms at the 80 kBaud rate. But once
ms. The corresponding round trip delay can be reduced the full frame of buffered LLRs is available to the decoder,
from 2.3 seconds to less than 3/4 second. The one-way de- the FEC decoding can proceed at a very rapid rate. This
lay for LEO can be reduced from about 908 ms to 130 ms allows the latency to be reduced from 2 full QPSK long
with its round trip delay reduced from 1.8 seconds to 230 frames to a little over 1 QPSK short frame. This can im-
ms. Even allowing for additional delays for speech coding prove added latency by a factor of 7 or more.
and processing delays in the transmitter, the total delays
can be brought down to levels that should be acceptable for 5. Low Latency DVB-S2 Receiver Hardware
conversational speech, especially in a push to talk environ-
ment. A complete flexible DVB-S2 receiver can be implemented
by combining an ASIC demodulator chip set with a rela-
tively low cost dual ADC and an FPGA SoC (System on
a Chip). A simplified block diagram of the hardware is il-
lustrated in Figure 1. The hardware, FPGA HDL, and soft-
ware for this receiver are currently being developed as part
of the AMSAT-NA Phase4Ground effort (Phase4Ground).
The implementation illustrated uses a GbE Ethernet link for
connection to a PC. This link can be shared or dedicated.
Alternative designs could use USB for the link.
The DVB-S2 receive function is split between the hardware
Figure 1. Block Diagram and the SDR signal processing executing in the PC. The PC
signal processing will be based on the open source GNU
Radio (GNURadio).
Modern multi-core PCs with advanced SIMD (Single In-
4. Implementation struction Multiple Data) instructions sets are particularly
Fortunately, some ASIC DVB-S2 demodulator ASICs have good at performing the types of signal processing required.
a feature known as external demodulation or demodulator GNU radio takes advantages of these instructions through
bypass. This feature essentially breaks the connection be- the volk library (VOLK). Since a PC is typically required
tween the internal DVB-S2 demodulator and the internal for other function, this configuration is both flexible and
FEC decoder such that the LLR values can be sourced from economical. As DVB-S2 based amateur radio satellites be-
an external demodulator. The LLR values from the external come operational, integrated configurations can be evolved
demodulator can be loaded directly to the FEC decoder for to perform everything within a single hardware box.
subsequent downstream processing. This processing typi-
cally includes both the FEC decoding and the de-framing 5.1. Normal Symbol Rate Operation
and formatting of the error corrected data bits into a nor- For symbol rates in the 1 to 45 MBaud range, all of the
mal DVB-S2 transport byte stream. This transport byte DVB-S2 processing can be handled entirely by the ASIC.
stream can consist of either MPEG Transport Streams as The decoded transport byte streams are simply packaged
used in broadcast applications or raw BBFRAMES (Base- onto Ethernet frames and delivered to the PC. Further pro-
band Frames). This support for BBFRAMES allows access cessing of the byte steam will be handled by a driver or
to all of the non-broadcast functionality of DVB-S2 includ- user-space software on the PC. Since all of the standard
ing Generic Stream Encapsulation and Multiple Transport broadcast MPEG transport streams for both DVB-S2 and
Streams. DVB-S are already widely supported, these MPEG streams
For low symbol rate applications, an external demodulator can be passed to existing Windows or Linux video driver
can be operated with a symbol rate of 80 kBaud or lower. frameworks. The BBFRAMES of non-MPEG applications
Unlike the ASIC’s internal demodulator, which has to be do required different processing. This will be handled
optimized for broadcast rates and consumer grade LNBs, by new drivers and new GNURadio blocks that decode
the external demodulator can be optimized instead for low the BBFRAMES, perform de-encapsulation of Generic
symbol rates in a specific application. Such an external Streams, and make the data available to specialized appli-
demodulator can handle unusual requirements e.g. the high cations.
Doppler shifts present in LEO. It should be noted that operational DVB-S2 transmit blocks
Using an external demodulator, a full frame of LLRs must already exist within GNURadio. These currently handle all
 Minimizing Latency in Low Symbol Rate DVB-S2 Applications

of the transmit functions including frame formatting, FEC delay through the decimating filter is minimal as is the per
coding, modulation, and filtering. All of the new GNURa- packet transmission time over the wire (64 µsec).
dio processing blocks for the receiver will initially be avail-
The 5 Msps IQ stream is received at the PC where it is
able from the Phase4Ground(Phase4Ground) site as out of
then made available for processing in GNU Radio signal
tree modules and will eventually be submitted for inclusion
processing blocks. These blocks will perform a course
in a future release of GNURadio.
frequency correction and then further decimate the input
stream to a lower sample rate. Following any decima-
5.2. Low Symbol Rate Operation tion, the GNU Radio blocks will perform the required de-
For symbol rates in the 80 kBaud to 1.5 MBaud range (or modulator functions of fine frequency correction, symbol
even lower), the DVB-S2 processing is split between the timing recovery, framing, demodulation, descrambling, de-
FPGA, the GNU Radio based signal processing software at interleaving, and de-mapping. Ultimately, the demodula-
the PC, and the ASIC. This split processing requires that tion will produce soft-decision LLR values for each bit.
data first be moved from the hardware to the PC and then When only short frames are used, each demodulated frame
back from the PC to the hardware. This is the primary func- will contain exactly 16200 LLR values together with a sin-
tion of the FPGA SoC which provides the necessary inter- gle MODCOD that indicates the modulation scheme and
face and control signals to the ASIC. FEC rate for the frame. The duration of the frame will vary
by the modulation order (2, 3, 4, or 5). At the 80 kBaud
5.3. Tuner symbol rate and QPSK the duration is about 105 ms. This
The Tuner IC handles the received signal from the dish delay represents the largest component of the added latency
mounted LNB. The Tuner translates this L-Band signal of the receiver.
from the down-converter to IQ baseband. This device also
includes an integrated low pass filter programmable from 5.5. Moving LLR Values to the ASIC
5 to 36 MHz. The bandwidth is large enough to encom- LLR values for an entire frame can be transported from
pass both the DVB-S2 carrier’s occupied bandwidth and the PC back to the hardware receiver over GbE in 2 jumbo
the worst case expected frequency offset. packets. The transit time on the wire for these two packets
For normal symbols rates, the IQ output is digitized by the is about 128 µsec. There are additional delays in the PC
10 bit ADC converters on the demodulator ASIC, typically network stack. There many also be short delays in any in-
at 135 Msamples/s. This allows support for symbol rates tervening switch hardware which will typically buffer one
up to 45 MBaud with 3 samples per symbol. or more frames at each switching node.
For low symbol rates, the ASIC demodulator is bypassed After these short delays, the receiver hardware assembles
and the baseband IQ output of the tuner is routed to a pair the Layer 2 packet from the wire and transfers the LLR
of external Analog to Digital Converters. The tuner IC’s data directly to the ASIC. These transfers occurs at a nom-
internal low pass filters have a minimum programmable inal 100 MHz. Since the frame will always contain 16200
cutoff frequency of 5 MHz. Their minimum attenuation LLRs, this transfer requires only about 162 µsec and does
is typically specified at 2.4 times the cut-off frequency or not contribute significantly to the total delay. 162 µsec later
12.5 MHz minimum. To avoid aliasing, the 12 bit ADC the payload data frame will be fully error corrected and a
channels sample the IQ baseband at 40Msps and transfer short time later payload bytes will appear on the transport
the digital values to the FPGA. The baseband IQ sample interface, again at 100 MHz.
stream is then decimated by 8 in the FPGA to produce a For the final step, the FPGA SoC delivers the complete de-
low pass filtered 5 Msps IQ stream. This sample rate is modulated and error corrected BBFRAME over the GbE
sufficient to handle symbol rates of 1 MBaud or lower to- to the PC. The subsequent PC processing is then handled
gether with frequency offsets up to about 250kHz, depend- in the same manner as for the normal symbol rates where
ing on the sample rate. The frequency offset is corrected in processing is performed entirely by the ASIC. In other
subsequent signal processing as is traditional in DVB-S2 words, the downstream processing of the transport stream
demodulation. or BBFRAME is the same for high sample rates using the
internal demodulator and low sample rates using the exter-
5.4. Moving IQ Samples to the PC nal demodulation chain.
The 5 Msps IQ stream contains 20MB/sec of data. Us-
ing gigabit Ethernet with jumbo packets, received sample
blocks can be transferred from the FPGA 2000 samples at
a time at a nominal rate of about 2500 packets/second. The
 Minimizing Latency in Low Symbol Rate DVB-S2 Applications

6. Summary
DVB-S2 latency is important in low symbol rate applica-
tions e.g. Amateur Radio Satellites. Economic receivers
that minimize the low-symbol rate latency are possible by
combining relatively low cost hardware with the signifi-
cant signal processing capabilities of a modern PC using
GNU Radio. With significant improvements in DVB-S2 re-
ceiver latency, system designs are possible where the over-
all round-trip latencies are low enough to support applica-
tions e.g. two way conversation speech.

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