Performance analysis of DSSS- and CSS-based physical layer for IoT transmission over LEO satellites

Abstract

To determine a suitable waveform for Internet of Things (IoT) transmission over low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, this paper reports the results of a performance comparison between chirp spread spectrum (CSS)-based LoRa and direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)-based Ingenu. The performance of both waveforms was measured in terms of the packet error rate, throughput, and packet loss rate, considering the Doppler effect caused by the high speed of LEO satellites and the interference among multiple terminals. Simulation results indicate that the DSSS scheme is more suitable than the CSS scheme for high-traffic IoT services because of its robustness against interference among multiple terminals. However, the CSS scheme is more suitable than the DSSS scheme for high-mobility IoT services because of its robustness against the Doppler effect. We discuss various solutions, such as the preprocessing of Doppler effect and avoidance of packet collision, to enhance the performance of the DSSS and CSS schemes. The simulation results of the proposed solution show that the enhanced DSSS scheme can be a proper waveform in IoT transmission over LEO satellites for both the high-traffic and high-mobility services.