Patent ID: 11881928
Assignee: THALES
Field: Telecommunications (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 7:
8. The method of space communication as claimed in claim 4, wherein
the multibeam space telecommunications system is configured to be integrated into an integrated telecommunications system, the integrated telecommunications system comprising in addition to the multibeam space telecommunications system at least one terrestrial system,
the at least one terrestrial system comprising:
integrated into one or two terrestrial ground stations, a cellular terrestrial radiofrequency (RF) relay and an interconnection gateway between the terrestrial RF relay and a common fixed terrestrial infrastructure, shared with the multibeam space telecommunications system; and
an additional access module for accessing the terrestrial system, formed by the terrestrial RF relay and said one or two terrestrial ground stations, said additional access module for accessing the terrestrial system being included in the terrestrial station or said one or two terrestrial ground stations, and
the at least one user terminal of the multibeam space telecommunications system, configured in dual-mode or multi-mode to communicate in the multibeam space telecommunications system and/or the terrestrial system;
the method of space communication comprising the following steps executed before the first step:
in a prior step, the additional access module broadcasts to the at least one user terminal which lie in a global geographical coverage of the space relay a frequency plan of the multibeam space telecommunications system containing a list of identifiers and of respectively associated frequencies of the carriers of uplinks and of downlinks; and then
in a step of scan launch and execution, the broadcasting beacons of the terrestrial system and/or of the multibeam space telecommunications system are scanned by the at least one user space terminal according to a predetermined scanning algorithm, and an indication of a mode of new connection, taken from among connection to the terrestrial system and to the space system, and to be selected is provided, this indication being dependent on respective availabilities of the terrestrial system and the multibeam space telecommunications system and a selection strategy based on priorities of a system from among the terrestrial system and the multibeam space telecommunications system, and then
in a validation step, the indication of the mode of connection to be selected is validated by the at least one user space terminal; thereafter
in a step of selecting the communication system by the at least one user space terminal, when a terrestrial mode is selected, the at least one terminal is connected to the terrestrial system, and when a satellite mode is selected the at least one user terminal is connected to the multibeam space telecommunications system by executing the set of first and second steps or the set of the first, second, third, fourth and fifth steps.