Novel Information Delivery Methods in Satellite Based Communication Networks

Abstract : The work performed under the aforementioned AFOSR grant includes research on satellite-based communications networks. It consists of two parts. In the first part, the author investigates some of the current resource allocation and handover issues in non-geostationary mobile satellite systems. He proposes a channel classification scheme in which available carriers are partitioned into classes, and each class is associated with a range of propagation delays to the satellite. The key idea of this approach is that users with similar propagation delays are assigned to the same class of carriers. The suggested infrastructure results in better resource utilization and a lower call blocking rate and can be implemented with low signaling load. In the second part, the author considers information dissemination through satellite broadcast delivery and, more specifically, the identification and treatment of the issues that arise in novel multi-stage broadcast scheduling-caching applications. This study investigated the design of the satellite schedule, the cache management policies at the ground stations, and the terrestrial schedules that arise in joint fashion in the context of the problem. (20 figures, 12 refs.)