Performance analysis of a PRMA protocol suitable for voice and datatransmissions in low Earth orbit mobile satellite systems

Mobile satellite systems (MSSs) are expected to play a significant role in providing users with communication services worldwide. In such a context, low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations seem to be a good solution to attain a global coverage and to allow the use of low-power lightweight mobile terminals. This paper analyzes the performance of a novel medium access control (MAC) scheme suitable for applications in LEO-MSSs, named packet reservation multiple access with hindering states (PRMA-HS), that has been derived by proper modifications of the well-known PRMA protocol. We envisage a mixed traffic with voice sources and data sources with different quality of service (QoS) requirements. The good behavior of the proposed PRMA-HS scheme is validated by extensive comparisons with the classical PRMA protocol. Finally, it is shown that PRMA-HS efficiently supports integrated voice and data traffic in LEO-MSSs     

Proposal and performance evaluation of an efficient multiple-access protocol for LEO satellite packet networks

This paper deals with a modified version of the packet reservation multiple-access (PRMA) protocol suitable for integration of real-time (voice) and best effort (data) traffic in low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication systems. The proposed scheme differs from previous alternatives on the method adopted to handle access requests for voice and data terminals, and to transmit data messages. An analytical approach is proposed and validated in the case of voice and classical (i.e., geometric distributed) data traffic in order to derive system performance in terms of mean data message delay and voice packet dropping probability. However, in order to better highlight the advantages of the proposed approach typical interactive and background traffics types have been also considered. Performance comparisons with previous proposed PRMA protocols for voice and data transmission in LEO satellite communication systems are also shown in order to highlight the better behavior of the proposed scheme. Finally, a brief discussion concerning the extension of the proposed S-PRMA protocol to the case of different satellite communication systems is also provided.     

Fair deterministic packet access protocol: F-RAMA (fair resourceassignment multiple access)

The RAMA (resource auction multiple access) protocol uses a scheme where the access procedure is divided into fixed length cycles. A variation of RAMA, the tree-search resource auction multiple access (TRAMA) protocol, was proposed to reduce the length cycle. Both protocols present disadvantages, although different ones. The authors propose and evaluate another variation of RAMA, fair resource assignment multiple access (F-RAMA). Simulation methods were used to calculate packet dropping probability, access delay and statistics of speech clipping in voice transmission     

A distributed MAC scheme supporting voice services in mobile ad hoc networks

Future mobile ad hoc networks are expected to support voice traffic. The requirement for small delay and jitter of voice traffic poses a significant challenge for medium access control (MAC) in such networks. User mobility presents unique difficulties in this context due to the associated dynamic path attenuation. In this paper, a MAC scheme for mobile ad hoc networks supporting voice traffic is proposed. With the aid of a low‐power probe prior to DATA transmissions, resource reservation is achieved in a distributed manner, thus leading to small packet transmission delay and jitter. The proposed scheme can automatically adapt to dynamic path attenuation in a mobile environment. Statistical multiplexing of on/off voice traffic can also be achieved by partial resource reservation for off voice flows. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance of DS/CDMA systems with differential M-ary orthogonal modulation and RS-coding for LEO satellite communications

This paper presents a coded modulation scheme based on M-ary orthogonal modulation by means of Walsh–Hadamard (WH) sequences, suitable for low-earth-orbit (LEO) direct sequence/code division multiple access (DS/CDMA) satellite communication systems. Based on the IS-95 scheme, we consider Reed–Solomon (RS)-coded M-ary orthogonal modulation with error or erasures decoding, which presents good performance enhancement with low complexity. LEO satellite links are characterized by large Doppler frequency shifts caused by the difference in velocity between the satellite and the earth mobile terminal, which make conventional non-coherent detection ineffective. In order to overcome the phase shift variations during the symbol period, which result in orthogonality loss of the WH sequences, we applied a differential encoding process to the spreading sequences or the WH chips prior to transmission. A special diversity process suitable for the environment under consideration is also applied. Simulation results show that the proposed diversity/coding/modulation scheme attains very good performance at low transmitter/receiver complexity. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

低轨卫星移动通信系统接入方案

在低轨卫星移动通信系统中,由于卫星和移动用户间的相对运动使得呼叫切换频繁发生.为了降低星间切换请求到达率,减小系统切换开销,本文在距离优先接入方案基础上进一步提出了两种接入策略:覆盖时间优先方案和仰角加权的覆盖时间优先方案.构造了非均匀分布全球话务密度模型.并参照某实际系统参数,对不同接入方案准则下的全球话务服务进行了系统仿真,得到了相应的系统性能参数.     

宽带GEO卫星网络媒体接入控制协议

宽带地球同步轨道（GEO）卫星通信网络中对媒体接入控制协议设计的目的就是在保障用户服务质量的同时提高系统资源利用率。概述了宽带GEO卫星网络的特点,总结了影响媒体接入控制协议性能的主要因素,重点对两种多址接入方案进行分析：基于混合式自适应分配机制的媒体接入控制协议和基于地面请求策略的动态分配多址接入协议。结果表明,提高网络性能的最佳方法是将有效的地面请求策略与合理的资源分配方式相结合。最后,对下一步的研究方向提出了建议。     

Resource management model and performance evaluation for satellite communications

Efficient resource management is mandatory to achieve maximum system capacity for next generation communications systems. Resource management deals with the available spectral band, time, power, and space for a transmission signal. It includes (i) the frequency planning, (ii) the selection of transmit power, and (iii) the assignment of the channels and access nodes to the users. The paper presents a generalized notation as well as graph algorithms for resource management problems. Impairment graphs can be used for frequency planning, whereas flow graphs are suitable for channel access problems. To evaluate the performance of the resource management, service criteria (such as blocking or the carrier to interference ratio C/I) or efficiency criteria (bandwidth requirements) can be derived from the graphs. The resource management techniques are applied to satellite networks with non‐geostationary orbits yielding time‐variant network topologies. As a simple example, the channel assignment and capacity optimization of the EuroSky Way system are shown. Furthermore, a comparison of fixed, dynamic and hybrid channel allocation schemes (FCA, DCA, HCA) for a typical MEO satellite scenario is given. Satellite diversity and its impact on bandwidth requirement and transmission quality is also examined. Finally, it is shown how spread spectrum systems can be investigated with the presented tools. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personal communications by satellite

Personal communications (PC) refers to two-way voice (and possibly data) communications to a small hand-held unit, capable of being carried by a person and used in various locations. PC via satellite refers to the case where this hand-held unit communicates directly with a satellite to provide the duplex voice (or data) service. Both geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) and low earth orbit (LEO) satellites have been considered to provide this service. GEO and LEO satellite systems must compete with existing mobile cellular radio systems both in meeting performance requirements and service costs, if they are to be a significant supplier of PC services. GEO and LEO systems each have unique advantages and disadvantages when used to provide a PC service. While these general characteristics are identified in Section 1 of the paper, a more quantitative comparison is needed. This quantitative comparison is made by comparing a GEO PC satellite system, operating at EHF (K_a-band) frequencies with a LEO system operating at UHF (L-band) frequencies, including service costs for both systems. The two systems used in the comparison are examples of realistic GEO and LEO system designs for PC service, and although it is not exhaustive, the comparison points out some of the key differences between GEO and LEO systems that affect service performance and cost.     

Dynamic resource allocation for DVB‐RCS networks

To provide high‐speed multimedia services using the digital video broadcasting‐return channel satellite (DVB‐RCS) standard, it is imperative to efficiently assign timeslots according to user demands and dynamically take into account the variations of the propagation conditions. In satellite networks operating above 10 GHz, rain fading constitutes the dominant factor deteriorating the quality of service. In this paper, a novel two‐phase resource allocation scheme for a DVB‐RCS compliant satellite network is proposed. The scheme operates in two phases, the resource calculation and the resource assignment. In the resource calculation phase, based on a dynamic channel model, an efficient algorithm is presented to determine the superframe design that maximizes system throughput. In the resource assignment phase, a novel Hybrid Bin‐packing algorithm is introduced maximizing the utilization of the multi‐frequency time division multiple access frame. The proposed algorithm has been compared with existing schemes exhibiting significantly better results with regard to overall system throughput. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integrated video and voice transmission using packet reservation multiple access

This paper proposes a new protocol for the integration of voice and video transmission over the packet reservation multiple access (PRMA) system that is a modification of reservation‐ALOHA protocol. We focus on low bit‐rate video applications like video conferencing and visual telephony for wireless communications. The ITU–T H.263 standard provides a solution to the need for low bit‐rate video compression under 64 kbytes/s. The proposed protocol assumes that each voice terminal follows a traffic pattern of talk spurts and silent gaps with fixed permission probability (p=0.3), and each video terminal has the higher permission probability (p=1) to access the available slot based on ITU–T H.263 standard. Again, we present a ‘pseudo‐reservation’ scheme to release slots reserved by video terminals according to the contents of each video transmission buffer, and the active voice terminals can temporarily access the additional slots to improve the performance without sacrificing the video capacity of the system. The packet dropping probability of the active voice terminals and bandwidth utilization of the system are superior to the original PRMA, as indicated in simulation results. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于STK的双层卫星星座设计及仿真

轨道与星座的设计是整个卫星通信系统设计的基础,合理的轨道设计与星座配置方案可以显著提高系统的整体性能。结合GEO卫星处理能力强,LEO卫星星地时延小的特点,以提供全球实时接入为目标,提出了一种由LEO卫星提供全球覆盖的GEO/LEO双层卫星网络星座设计方案。运用卫星覆盖带分析方法,确定由48颗LEO卫星完成全球覆盖。通过在STK仿真环境下进行计算机仿真验证,得到所设计的卫星星座可完成全天时全球覆盖。     

Novel satellite digital video TDMA system for business videocommunications

The authors propose a satellite video signal transmission system that uses a time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme for digital video signal transmission and a code division multiple access (CDMA) scheme for voice signal transmission from a video signal reception-only earth station (backward voice signal transmission). The adoption of a TDMA scheme makes it possible to transmit video signals from various places and to communicate in multipoint-to-(multi)point mode. For backward voice channel transmission from video signal reception-only earth stations, a superposed CDMA voice signal transmission over TDMA video signals by using the same transponder is proposed. The employment of high coding gain forward error correction and development of a cochannel interference cancellation technique have made it possible for the proposed system to transmit a practical number of voice channels. The performance of the proposed system has been experimentally evaluated and the results show the proposed scheme can transmit about 20 CDMA voice channels simultaneously     

Stability analysis of an adaptive packet access scheme for mobile communication systems with high propagation delays

In this paper, we investigate a packet access scheme that is able to support mixed traffics in the presence of high propagation delays. Referring to a Time‐Code Division Multiple Access air interface, we propose a Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol based on a random access scheme. A successful attempt grants the use of a slot‐code resource. This protocol is named Adaptive Time Code‐Packet Reservation Multiple Access (ATC‐PRMA), since the access parameters are changed, depending on the traffic load conditions, so as to fulfil Quality of Service requirements. Numerical examples are carried out for the Low Earth Orbit (LEO)‐Mobile Satellite System (MSS) scenario, but all these considerations could be applied to High‐Altitude Platform Stations (HAPSs) as well. In both cases, high propagation delays prevent an immediate feedback to users. An analytical approach is proposed to study the stability of our MAC scheme. Accordingly, we define a criterion for optimizing system performance. The predicted ATC‐PRMA behaviour is supported by simulation results. Finally, we show the performance improvement of ATC‐PRMA with respect to a MAC protocol not employing adaptive parameters. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Q-Win – A New Admission and Handoff Management Scheme for Multimedia LEO Satellite Networks

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks are deployed as an enhancement to terrestrial wireless networks in order to provide broadband services to users regardless of their location. In addition to global coverage, these satellite systems support communications with hand-held devices and offer low cost-per-minute access cost, making them promising platform for Personal Communication Services (PCS). LEO satellites are expected to support multimedia traffic and to provide their users with the negotiated Quality of Service (QoS). However, the limited bandwidth of the satellite channel, satellite rotation around the Earth and mobility of end-users makes QoS provisioning and mobility management a challenging task. One important mobility problem is the intra-satellite handoff management. The main contribution of this work is to propose Q-Win, a novel call admission and handoff management scheme for LEO satellite networks. A key ingredient in our scheme is a companion predictive bandwidth allocation strategy that exploits the topology of the network and contributes to maintaining high bandwidth utilization. Our bandwidth allocation scheme is specifically tailored to meet the QoS needs of multimedia connections. The performance of Q-Win is compared to that of two recent schemes proposed in the literature. Simulation results show that our scheme offers low call dropping probability, providing for reliable handoff of on-going calls, good call blocking probability for new call requests, while maintaining bandwidth utilization high.     

An average error probability evaluation in a fading environment using finite state Markov channel for LEO satellite communication system

Recent research shows that fading channels have a much larger capacity than anticipated with traditional approaches. This modern view on fading channels encouraged us to characterize these channels more precisely for better identification and use of wireless channel capacity.Since the Markov model is a natural way to approximate a channel with memory, many people have considered finite state first-order Markov modeling for describing a wireless communication channel.In this paper, we first introduce the relationship between a physical fading channel and the corresponding finite state Markov Model (FSMC) in case of low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication system, which can be used for performance evaluation in an M-order quadrature amplitude-modulation (MQAM) transmission scheme by deriving an analytical expression of average bit error rate in Rayleigh fading channel. By establishing the FSMC, we show that the FSMC is accurate enough to evaluate the performance of MQAM modulation scheme to be implemented on board a LEO satellite communication system.     

Design and performance evaluation of a MAC protocol for wireless local area networks

We propose and analyze, from a performance viewpoint, a Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). The protocol, named Prioritized-Access with Centralized-Control (PACC), supports integrated traffics by guaranteeing an almost complete utilization of network resources. The proposed protocol combines random access for signalling, with collision-free access to the transmission channel. The transmission channel is assumed to be slotted, with slots grouped into frames. Access to transmission slots is controlled by a centralized scheduler which manages a multiclass queue containing the users' requests to access the transmission channel. Three classes of users are assumed: voice traffic (voice), data traffic with real-time constraints (high-priority data), and classical data traffic (low-priority data). A priority mechanism ensures that speech users have the highest priority in accessing the idle slots, since speech packets have a more demanding delay constraint. The remaining channel bandwidth is shared fairly among the high-priority data terminals. The low-priority data terminals use the slots left empty by the other classes. Specifically, access to transmission slots is controlled by the centralized scheduler by managing a transmission cycle for each class of terminals. The voice-terminals cycle has a constant length equal to one frame, while the lengths of the data-terminals cycles are random variables which depend on the number of active voice and data terminals. In this paper we show that the proposed scheme can support the same maximum number of voice terminals as an ideal scheduler, while guaranteeing an almost complete utilization of network capacity. In addition, via a performance analysis, we verify that by limiting the number of real-time data terminals in the network this class of traffic can be statistically guaranteed access delays in the order of 200–300 msec. Hence, the QoS the network gives to the real-time data terminals makes this service suitable for real-time applications such as alarms or low bit rate video. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Combined code reuse scheme with two‐dimensional OVSF codes assignment algorithm for uplink multi‐user/multi‐rate block spread multi‐cellular CDMA

The two‐dimensional (2D) block spread code division multiple access (CDMA) can avoid the uplink multiple‐access interference with low‐complexity single‐user detection in a slow fading channel and, therefore, is very attractive. In the 2D spreading, orthogonal variable spreading factor (OVSF) is used for spreading; an important problem is how to efficiently assign the limited resource of OVSF codes to users with different data rates, while meeting the requirement of quality of service in a multi‐cell environment. In this paper, it is shown that the code reuse can improve the code reuse efficiency and the proposed code reuse scheme combined with code assignment algorithm can allow flexible multi‐rate uplink transmission. The computer simulation confirms that the proposed code assignment algorithm improves the code reuse efficiency while achieving lower blocking probability than traditional CDMA. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Low earth orbit satellite systems for communications

It may be that we are now entering the era of LEO constellation satellite communications after thirty years of domination by the GEO systems. This paper heralds the coming of the new era with a tutorial approach to the system design and trade-offs of LEO constellation system design. It discusses orbital configurations, network topologies and routeing considerations, multiple access schemes and link performance design. In so doing it brings out the major design parameters and how they interact with each other. Also considered are the service applications for the LEO constellation systems, and the important difference between real-time and delayed communication systems is highlighted. Examples of single and multi-beam (cellular) coverage system link designs are presented for L-K_a frequency bands. Future papers will consider aspects of the LEO spacecraft and launchers.