Joint Detection, Channel Estimation and Interference Nulling for Terrestrial-Satellite Downlink Co-Existence in the Upper Mid-Band

Abstract

The upper mid-band FR3 spectrum (7-24 GHz) has garnered significant interest for future cellular services. However, utilizing a large portion of this band requires careful interference coordination with incumbent satellite systems. This paper investigates interference from high-power terrestrial base stations (TN-BSs) to satellite downlink receivers. A central challenge is that the victim receivers, i.e., ground-based non-terrestrial user equipment (NTN-UEs) such as satellite customer premises equipment, must first be detected and their channels estimated before the TN-BS can effectively place nulls in their directions. We explore a potential solution where NTN-UEs periodically transmit preambles or beacon signals that TN-BSs can use for detection and channel estimation. The performance of this nulling approach is analyzed in a simplified scenario with a single victim, revealing the interplay between path loss and estimation quality in determining nulling performance. To further validate the method, we conduct a detailed multi-user site-specific ray-tracing (RT) simulation in a rural environment. The results show that the proposed nulling approach is effective under realistic parameters, even with high densities of victim units, although TN-BS may require a substantial number of antennas.