| Abstract: | This paper considers a timeslot assignment problem in an interactive satellite multimedia (ISM) system with digital video broadcast‐return channel via satellite (DVB‐RCS). The timeslot assignment problem is formulated as a binary integer programming to maximize the overall weighted throughput and is shown to be NP‐hard. Thus, three real‐time heuristic algorithms including ratio‐based, packet‐size (PS)‐based, and transmission gain (TG)‐based are derived, and some computational experiments are made. Considering the results, the ratio‐based heuristic algorithm is demonstrated to be the most effective and efficient. We propose adapting the ratio‐based heuristic algorithm to the timeslot assignment problem to greatly improve the ISM system utilization. |
