A probabilistic mispointing analysis for land mobile satellite communications systems with directive antennas

A probabilistic analysis of the antenna mispointing phenomenon observed in many land mobile satellite communications systems is presented. Specifically, the PDF of the total mispointing error is derived under the assumption of Gaussian distributed azimuth and elevation mispointing. Both equal and unequal variances with respect to azimuth and elevation mispointing are considered. Moreover, the effect of mispointing on average bit error rate is also determined analytically. The analysis is applicable to a wide range of pointing systems and antenna types.