Patent ID: 6021309
Filing Date: 2000-02-01
Classification: H04B,H04W

Abstract:
A satellite communication system operative with at least one existing terrestrial communication system for carrying communication traffic, comprising:a constellation of satellites in earth orbit, each of said satellites transmitting one or more links containing said traffic to one or more terrestrial users;one or more terrestrial gateways, said gateways being linked to one or more satellites in said constellation for carrying said traffic, each of said gateways associated with a geographically limited cell;a computing center, operatively associated with said communication system; anda communication link allocation system within said computing center for calculating optimized available resources and for allocating said traffic according to said optimized resources for a specific cell, said communication link allocation system comprising:a first computer module constructed to generate and store a geographic definition of a cell including the communications resources available thereto and the power constraints related to said resources;a second computer module constructed to generate and store a user traffic model based on historic user demands related to said cell over time, including data relating to channel changes for connected links;a third computer module constructed to generate and store an optimized performance objective in the form of a barrier function which penalizes allocations which cause channel changes to links in said cell over time; andwherein said communication link allocation system calculates a solution for optimum traffic allocation for traffic within a cell at a particular time, at least in part based on said data in said first, second, and third computer modules; anda traffic allocation module comprising:a tiling module for defining multiple subdivisions within said cell;a diversity implementation module for receiving and storing a selected diversity policy; anda subdivision adjustment section for adjusting the definition of a subdivision in accordance with said diversity policy and said user traffic model, thereby balancing the signal to noise ratio among links in said cell.