A Tractable Approach for Predicting Pass Duration in Dense Satellite Networks

Several massive satellite constellations are currently being deployed to complement evolving terrestrial communication networks. Low Earth orbits (LEO) are selected for these constellations due to their relative low latency and reduced path-loss where each satellite dwells for a very short period of time within the user’s field-of-view. This inherent nature prompts frequent handovers between the satellites and thus causing an increased signaling overhead and possible service interruptions. This letter lays a tractable approach for characterizing satellites’ pass-duration using analytic tools, where it captures the satellites positions as a spherically wrapped homogeneous point process and accordingly derives the statistical distribution of the pass-duration. The letter further compares the presented results with well-designed constellations based on Walker-delta pattern. The obtained mean pass-duration is shown to follow a simple dependency on the altitude and provides a close approximation for practical constellation deployments.