Characterization of user mobility in Low Earth Orbit mobile satellite systems

Future mobile communication networks will provide a global coverage by mean s of constellations with nongeosynchronous satellites. Multi-spot-beam ante nnas on satellites will allow a cellular coverage all over the Earth. Due t o the unstationarity of satellites a call may require many cell changes dur ing its lifetime. These passages will be managed by inter-beam handover pro cedures. This paper deals with the modeling of the user cell change process during call lifetime in Low Earth Orbit-Mobile Satellite Systems (LEO-MSSs ). The analytical derivations presented in this study can be also applied t o different mobility models provided that basic assumptions are fulfilled. This paper evaluates the impact of user mobility on the blocking performanc e of channel allocation techniques. Moreover, the handover arrival process towards a cell has been characterized by using a usual statistical paramete r for stationary point processes. Finally, a performance analysis has been carried out on the basis of the classic teletraffic theory for telephone sy stems.