Inbound Carrier Plan Optimization for Adaptive VSAT Networks

The past decades witnessed the application of adaptive coding and modulation (ACM) in satellite links. However, ACM technologies come at the cost of higher complexity when designing the network's carrier plan and user terminals. Accounting for those issues is even more important when the satellite link uses frequencies in Ka band and above, where the attenuation caused by tropospheric phenomena is a major concern. In this article, we propose a solution for the inbound, i.e., return link, carrier plan sizing of very small aperture terminal networks. As tropospheric attenuation is a key factor, we present a mathematical problem formulation based on spatially correlated attenuation time series. Our proposed sizing scheme is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming optimization problem. The numerical results for a test scenario in Europe show a 10 to 50% bandwidth improvement over traditional sizing methods for outage probabilities lower than 1%.