Table Of ContentLow Earth Orbital Satellites
for Personal Communication
Networks
For a complete listing of the Artech House Mobile Communications Library,
turn to the back of this book.
Low Earth Orbital Satellites
for Personal Communication
Networks
Abbas Jamalipour
Artech House
Boston • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jamalipour, Abbas
Low earth orbital satellites for personal communication networks / Abbas Jamalipour
p. cm.—(Artech House mobile communications library)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-89006-955-7 (alk. paper)
1. Artificial satellites in telecommunication. 2. Mobile communication systems.
I. Title. II. Series: Artech House telecommunications library.
TK5104.J35 1997
621.3845—dc21 97-32244
CIP
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Jamalipour, Abbas
Low earth orbital satellites for personal communication networks
1. Artificial satellites in telecommunication
I. Title
621.3’8254
ISBN 0-89006-955-7
Cover and text design by Darrell Judd.
© 1998 ARTECH HOUSE, INC.
685 Canton Street
Norwood, MA 02062
All rights reserved. Printed and bound in the United States of America. No part of this book
may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, in-
cluding photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, with-
out permission in writing from the publisher.
All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have
been appropriately capitalized. Artech House cannot attest to the accuracy of this informa-
tion. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trade-
mark or service mark.
International Standard Book Number: 0-89006-955-7
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-32244
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Low Earth Orbital Satellites for Personal Communication Networks
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii
Organization of this book xv
1 Mobile Satellite Communications 1
1.1 Communications satellites 2
1.1.1 Preliminary issues 2
1.1.2 History of communications satellites 5
1.2 Orbital dynamics of satellite systems 7
1.2.1 Kepler’s first law 8
1.2.2 Kepler’s second law 8
1.2.3 Kepler’s third law 8
1.2.4 An example: The geostationary orbit 10
v
vi Low Earth Orbital Satellites for Personal Communication Networks
1.3 Mobile satellite communications systems 12
1.3.1 Orbit selection 12
1.3.2 Mobile satellite systems 18
1.4 Summary 27
2 Communications with LEO Satellites 33
2.1 Preliminary issues in LEO satellite systems 35
2.1.1 Required number of LEO satellites and orbits 35
2.1.2 Hand-off 41
2.1.3 Intersatellite links 43
2.1.4 Spot beams 46
2.1.5 Doppler shift effect 51
2.2 Specific issues in LEO satellite systems 55
2.2.1 Selection of a multiple-access scheme 56
2.2.2 Traffic considerations 64
2.3 Modeling the LEO satellite systems 67
2.4 Summary 72
3 Application of CDMA in LEO Satellite Systems 77
3.1 Performance evaluation of analog systems 79
3.1.1 Traffic modeling 79
3.1.2 SIR: The measure of performance 82
3.1.3 Traffic assignment control 91
3.2 Performance of integrated voice/data systems 96
3.2.1 System considerations 96
3.2.2 Extension of the traffic model 99
3.2.3 Simulation environment 101
3.2.4 Performance measurement 103
3.2.5 Dynamic nonuniform traffic concepts 108
3.3 Summary 113
4 Spread-Slotted Aloha for LEO Satellite Systems 117
4.1 Spread-slotted Aloha 119
Contents vii
4.1.1 The Aloha multiple-access scheme 119
4.1.2 Spreading the Aloha packets 123
4.2 Employing spread-slotted Aloha in a LEO
satellite system 130
4.2.1 Distribution of users 132
4.2.2 Throughput analysis 134
4.2.3 Probability of packet success 136
4.3 Numerical examples 144
4.4 Summary 151
5 Modified Power Control in Spread-Slotted Aloha 157
5.1 Worst case in throughput performance 159
5.1.1 Intracell interference versus intercell interference 160
5.1.2 Performance of nonworst cases 164
5.2 Modified power control scheme 168
5.2.1 Purpose and structure of the scheme 169
5.2.2 Numerical examples 172
5.2.3 Some practical notes on realization of the scheme 179
5.3 Summary 180
6 Transmit Permission Control Scheme for
6 Spread-Slotted Aloha 185
6.1 Transmit permission control scheme:
Nonfading channel 187
6.1.1 Basic considerations 188
6.1.2 Transmit permission control 190
6.1.3 Throughput performance of transmit permission control 195
6.1.4 Average delay performance of transmit permission
control 202
6.2 Transmit permission control scheme: Fading channel 209
6.2.1 Fading channel model and analysis 209
6.2.2 Numerical examples of the performance of the system 212
viii Low Earth Orbital Satellites for Personal Communication Networks
6.3 Adaptive transmit permission control schemes 214
6.3.1 ATPC method 1 215
6.3.2 ATPC method 2 217
6.3.3 Performance of ATPC methods 217
6.4 Summary 219
7 Further Considerations in LEO Satellite Systems 223
7.1 Packet admission control scheme 224
7.1.1 System and traffic models 225
7.1.2 Evaluation of heavy-traffic performance 228
7.1.3 Concepts of the scheme 232
7.1.4 Performance of the scheme 233
7.2 Power control 236
7.2.1 The near-far problem 236
7.2.2 Implementation of power control 237
7.2.3 Effects of imperfections in power control 238
7.3 Multibeam LEO satellites 241
7.3.1 General expression for antenna gain 242
7.3.2 Spot-beam antenna gain 243
7.3.3 Performance of spot-beam antennas 245
7.4 Concept of adaptive array antennas 248
7.5 Summary 251
List of Acronyms 257
About the Author 261
Index 263
Low Earth Orbital Satellites for Personal Communication Networks
Preface
n the past few years, there has been a rush of research toward the
realization of a global personal communication network that can
Iprovide reliable, ubiquitous, and cost-effective communication serv-
ices to individuals via small and single-standard hand-held terminals. That
trend is expected to continue through the first decade of the next century.
The exponential increase in the number of subscribers for mobile tele-
phones during the last five years, as well as increasing trends for multi-
media communications, is driving the future of mobile communication
systems.
To meet the communication requirements in the upcoming century,
global personal communication networks (PCNs) have become one of the
hottest topics in the field of communications. An important and funda-
mental question in such plans is which system meets all those require-
ments. Current cellular systems, although they have good potential for
providing voice and data communications in urban areas, would not be a
proper choice for a global system. On the other hand, in accordance with
ix
x Low Earth Orbital Satellites for Personal Communication Networks
the research for satellite communication systems, there has been a wide-
spread desire to set up a single global communication system by satellites,
which may be the only solution for the globalization of communications
networks.
Thus, low Earth orbital (LEO) satellites seem to have some properties
over conventional geostationary satellites that make them appropriate
candidates for establishing PCNs on a global basis. LEO satellites, while
having the important features of conventional geostationary satellites,
such as wide coverage area, direct radio path, and flexibility of the
network architecture, provide some additional fundamental advantages
for global communication networks, for example, short propagation
delay, low propagation loss, and high elevation angle in high latitudes.
In recent years, the literature as well as the industry have paid much
attention to the commercial use of LEO satellites for establishing a global
PCN. Although the history of research on the application of LEO satellites
goes back to the early 1960s, the realization of using such satellites on
low-altitude orbits for PCN applications is in its infancy. A search through
the literature that yielded only a small number of written materials
related to this important part of future global communication service
prompted me to write this book.
This book is a theoretical study of some of the problems related to
the use of LEO satellites for a global communication service. Throughout
this book, the reader will find different aspects of the problems that
should be considered during the design of any LEO satellite communica-
tion networks, as well as a number of references to those systems that
cannot be found in the literature so easily. I believe engineers and students
can use the contents of this book to start working on LEO satellite
systems, but the materials should be modified during the practical reali-
zation of LEO satellite systems and according to collected statistics. In
that manner, this book will be much more useful if it is used in conjunction
with up-to-date technical papers containing practical data of real LEO
satellite systems.
This book presents an analytical framework to study the performance
of LEO satellite systems, and several problems related to employing those
systems in a global PCN are discussed. A major part of the book focuses
on the performance of LEO satellite systems when they employ one of
two promising multiple access candidates: code division multiple access
