A dynamic reservation protocol for LEO mobile satellite systems

In this paper, we propose a dynamic reservation protocol for the low earth orbit (LEO) mobile satellite system. Based on an analytical model, the dynamic reservation protocol enhances system performance by dynamically varying both the access probability and reservation bandwidth. To implement the protocol, a novel contention-pattern-analysis method is proposed to estimate the number of contending terminals at the start of a frame. The reservation protocol is employed to integrate connection-oriented and connectionless traffic over a satellite channel. Simulation and theoretical results are presented to analyze the performance of the protocol and illustrate its benefits.