Capacity enhancement with dynamic resource management for next generation satellite systems

For next generation satellites, satellite capacity management is especially important because of the extremely small granularity of capacity resources such as demodulators, frequency sub-bands, uplink spotbeams, and downlink spotbeams. This granularity makes it nearly impossible to accurately pre-assign capacity in a satellite system (like has traditionally been done) and still has the system be able to handle unexpected spikes and unplanned variations in traffic given its limited resources. This paper discusses managed resources, resource constraints, utilization optimization, capacity schedule management, and high quality of service (QoS) related to next generation satellite system capacity management and planning. This includes enumerating the types of resources to be managed along with the type of constraints to configure these resources. Also addressed are all of the new dimensions that need to be considered when allocating capacity resources. Transformational capacity management is described against the evolution of satellite networks starting with bent pipe satellites, to more recent layer 2 packet processing architectures, and proposed transformational layer 3 packet processing architectures. The job of capacity planners for next-generation and future satellites has increased ten-fold in complexity and planning can no longer be relegated to back-office offline capacity planning systems. Capacity planning has to become transformational just like the transformational satellite networks for which it plans resources