Satellite clusters: a performance study

A performance study of two onboard-stored baseband switched time-division multiaccess (TDMA) satellites interconnected through intersatellite links is discussed. The uplinks are operated under the slotted ALOHA policy, and the downlinks and intersatellite links employ a time-division-multiplexing (TDM) policy. Each satellite has a finite buffer capacity for successful packets arriving on the uplinks and on the intersatellite links. An approximate analytical model that determines the satellite cluster performance in terms of mean delay, throughput, and overflow probability is introduced. The analytical results are shown to be within the confidence intervals of the simulation results obtained with a 97% confidence level. It is concluded that using this model, the system designer can obtain the minimal system configuration for a required system performance.<
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