Fade countermeasures and adaptive resource sharing for an experimental TDMA satellite communications system operating at K-a-band

Satellite communications systems operating at K-a-band suffer from severe r ain fading. Thus, in order to achieve an acceptable availability fade count ermeasures have to be applied which are efficiently implemented using adapt ive resource sharing. In this letter, the results from a measurement campai gn during which an experimental time-division multiple-access satellite com munications system applying fade countermeasures has been operated at K-a-b and are reported and discussed. The results show that fade countermeasures can be used efficiently leading to a considerable improvement in performanc e and/or availability.