Performance study of frequency flexibility in high throughput satellites and its contribution to operations strategy

In this chapter, we describe a plan for comprehensive evaluation of a satellite communications (SATCOM) system with frequency flexibility. To cope with the more and more increasing demand of the SATCOM system, next- generation high-throughput satellites (HTS) will install a frequency flexibility function that can change the frequency assignment flexibly. To control this HTS, the flexible channel assignment method has been proposed. Under the time-varying traffic, this method performs higher throughput and reduces the number of control actions that change the frequency assignment. In the next step, comprehensive evaluation of the HTS system with the frequency flexibility is required. We summarize our previous results and describe a plan for the comprehensive evaluation of the HTS system in terms of performance index, communication traffic, and link assignment schemes. Finally, we suggest operations strategy of the HTS system including the predictive control.