Connectivity and other-user interference characteristics of broadcast protocols in satellite networks

Abstract

Satellite communications applications have grown from using single hops between fixed earth stations to employment of multiple hops through more than one satellite between fixed as well as mobile stations. With multiple satellites in a path from one point to another, one must consider the desirability of point-to-point links versus broadcast communications. This paper examines this issue for low-earth orbit (LEO) configurations from the aspects of mutual interference and connectivity. For the former, it is assumed that a common frequency allocation is used with the separation of users taking place by means of code division multiple access (CDMA). The latter is lower bounded by the minumum number of links from a given satellite to neighbor satellites.