Power Allocation in Land Mobile Satellite Systems: An Energy-Efficient Perspective

Energy-efficient resource allocation schemes have gained considerable attention in satellite communications since the energy consumption powered by solar panels or batteries strongly affect the on-board payload and operation lifetime. This letter proposes an energy-efficient power allocation scheme in a downlink land mobile satellite (LMS) system, which aims at maximizing the ratio of average rate over the total consumed power. With the aid of fractional programming, the energy-efficient optimal power allocation coefficient is first obtained for the LMS system by considering the practical propagation environment and maximum transmit power constraint. Then, analytical result for the optimal mean energy efficiency (EE) of the considered system is derived, which provides an effective approach to evaluate the satellite beam angle, terminal's elevation angle, and constant circuit power consumption on the EE of the LMS system.