Throughput analysis of several reliable broadcast schemes for satellite communications

In this paper, a novel analytical method called steady-state function metho d (SSFM) is presented to investigate several full memory multidestination s elective repeat (MSR) automatic repeat request (ARQ) schemes for reliable s atellite broadcast communications. First the analytical method SSFM is pres ented for the throughput analysis of the basic MSR ARQ scheme. Using this m ethod, the system throughput can be predicted with any finite receiver buff er. Simulation results show that for a wide range of system parameters, SSF M provides throughput estimation closer to simulation results. The accuracy of SSFM is higher than that of the conventional analytical methods for the MSR ARQ scheme. SSFM is also used to analyze the throughput of an optimal MSR ARQ scheme. In this paper, the throughput is optimized by choosing the optimal number of copies of a packet transmitted continuously to the receiv ers. Analytical results show that when the SSFM is used to evaluate the thr oughput of the optimal MSR ARQ scheme, the improvement on throughput of the MSR ARQ scheme is not apparent as revealed by other methods. Furthermore, SSFM is extended to analyze the performance of a type I hybrid MSR ARQ sche me in which the forward error correction (FEC) scheme is employed. Analytic al results show that the hybrid MSR ARQ scheme has stronger capability of i mproving the throughput of the pure MSR ARQ scheme than the optimal MSR ARQ scheme. The decision of employing the hybrid MSR ARQ scheme depends on the packet error ratio in the communication environment. (C) 2001 Elsevier Sci ence B.V. All rights reserved.