Communications Handover for Medium Altitude Satellite Systems

This paper discusses the problems and solutions of communications handover in a medium altitude multisatellite system. Various methods of handover are presented together with a description of the geometric boundaries of the basic problem. The effect of variable path delay on voice, teletype, and data transmissions is discussed. The paper then proceeds to formulate the specific design of an instantaneous handover system based on digital range measurement at each site, applicable to medium altitude satellite systems using digital data rates of 2400 bits per second. Expansion of the system to accommodate higher rates is shown to be relatively straightforward.