ADAPTIVE MULTIBEAM SATELLITE PAYLOAD BY M EANS OF COVERAGE RECONFIGURATION

This paper presents a set of algorithms aiming at the reconfiguration of a multibeam satellite coverage by control of the beam forming netwo rks. Two kinds of algorithm are studied : one for the satellite gain m anagement and the other for channels to beam allocation. The reconfigu rable system is compared to a fixed coverage one using a switching mat rix for the allocation of satellite channels to beams. It is shown tha t for short time communications (typically 100 ms) the reconfigurable system, offers, with the same antenna size, a dramatic increase in ter ms of the number of potential customers while maintaining a service qu ality comparable to that offered by the fixed coverage system using a switching matrix for the allocation of satellite channels to beams. Th e service quality is described here by two parameters : waiting time a nd blocking probability. However for communications with longer durati on (typically several minutes) the degradation is unbearable.