Application of Optimal Control to Flexible SATCOM Terminal Management

Satellite technology is an integral part of essential communication in today's fast-paced digital world. Communication that relies on satellite technology is called Satellite Communication, which in short is usually referred to as SATCOM. Bandwidth and connectivity needs are the two primary, highly dynamic, and expensive resources that need optimal management. To manage these highly dynamic resources, we use resource managers, built on optimal resource allocation algorithms to adaptively adjust the bandwidth based on needs and priorities. In today's literature, there has been very little research conducted on combining demand-driven resource allocation with satellite communications utilizing the laws of control system design. Our goal is to support SATCOM network operation centers by proposing a very systematic weight-based, efficient, fair, and adaptive resource allocation algorithm that is built on the foundations of optimal control design architectures. The main contribution of the paper is twofold. Firstly, the paper introduces a detailed model for the Satellite System Controller (SSC) and employs the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) technique to design an optimal control mechanism for the SSC. Secondly, the paper employs a resource allocation technique, enabling efficient and dynamic bandwidth allocation to ensure fair resource distribution. Detailed simulations of LQR for contro., along with a fair resource allocation strategy, offer valuable insights into achieving a highly efficient and reliable satellite communication system.