Patent ID: 6975600

Claim:
A multimode transmission system using TDMA comprising: a TDM switch coupled to a data signal, said data signal comprising a plurality of satellite services, said TDM switch multiplexing said data signal into a TDMA signal comprising a plurality of TDMA transmission frames, each TDMA transmission frame having a plurality of downlink frame time slots, wherein each of said downlink frame time slots is dynamically allocated to one of said plurality of satellite services, which comprise a point-to-point service comprising a portion of said downlink frame time slots dedicated for radiating multiple spot beams, wherein said spot beams are pointed to cover downlink cells, said pointing dynamically scheduled from data queues: a modulator coupled to said TDM switch and receiving said TDMA signal, said modulator modulating said TDMA signal to generate a modulated TDMA signal; a transmit antenna comprising beam-shaping and power-controlling systems coupled to said modulator and broadcasting said modulated TDMA signal using at least one downlink beam, said at least one downlink beam having a shape and number determined by said data signal, said beam-shaping and power-controlling systems enabling TDMA switching between shaped beam modes and spot beam modes of said antenna; and a processor comprising said data queues, said processor further comprising a power check mechanism checking that required power for said multiple spot beams is less than or equal to a total available radio frequency power in said transmit antenna.