Efficient resource allocation for QoS channels in MF-TDMA satellite systems

In this paper, we address the problem of providing guaranteed quality of service (QoS) channels over multi-frequency time division multiple access (MF-TDMA) systems that employ DPSK with multiple modulation modes. The two QoS measures that we consider are the bit error rate (BER) and the data rate. We treat the data rate as a deterministic QoS measure, and the BER as a statistical QoS measure. Our approach is divided into two phases: resource calculation and resource allocation. In the resource calculation phase, we calculate the number of timeslots required to provide the desired level of QoS. We treat this as a disturbance prediction problem and present a Markov model based scheme for solving it. We compare the performance of this scheme with that of the scheme implemented in the extremely high frequency satellite communication (EHF-SATCOM) systems, which are jointly used by the four military services. The resource allocation phase addresses the problem of allocating actual timeslots in the MF-TDMA channel structure (MTCS). The MTCS allows flexibility in capacity allocation, but suffers from inefficiencies caused by fragmentation. Here we propose a novel packing scheme called the Reserve Channel with Priority (RCP) fit, and show that it outperforms the first-fit and the best-fit algorithms in the cases considered.