Internet by satellite: a flexible processor with Radio Burst Switching

This article introduces a new switching approach, offering to satellite operators a wide flexibility for bandwidth, waveform, quality of service and service assignment, even during flight. Inherited from the optical domain, the prime mission of radio burst switching (RBS) is to provide efficiently circuit and packet switching solutions between a high number of spot beams. Uncertain market direction and speed of adaptation will also favor such agile technologies. RBS idea intrinsically minimizes the processing section dedicated to the regeneration of header, while the bulk of traffic bursts travels transparently without on-board processing. This concept also widely simplifies the terminal characteristics. The related techniques have been studied and simulated in the frame of the ULISS project. At the horizon 2010, the on board processor feasibility will be enabled thanks to ASIC technology improvements, to integrated multi gigabit transceivers and to system on chip processing architecture