Analysis of the ATDMA/PRMA++ protocol in a mobile satellite system environment

In this paper an adaptation of the frame and burst structure of the ATDMA/PRMA++ (advanced TDMA packet reservation multiple access) scheme to a mobile satellite environment is given. A new burst structure is presented which was modified from its original terrestrial use in such a way as to adapt to the long propagation delays (as compared to terrestrial networks) and the special behaviour of access schemes in a satellite environment where retransmission of data can only be performed at a loss of quality of service (especially for speech type data). Using three different frame structures which all make use of this new burst, simulation results are provided for the speech burst allocation delay, two approaches to the contention registration procedure and a comparison of the blockage rate of contention registration versus handover registration depending upon the amount of channels reserved for handover use only.