Distance-aware adaptive resources allocation for hybrid satellite/4G networks

The hybrid composition of satellite and terrestrial 4G LTE-A networks serves as a key enabler for a potential ubiquitous coverage and flexibility in bandwidth configuration. Thus, achieving a fruitful synergy in support of seamless services anywhere/anytime is an important contribution of that kind of architecture. However, many challenges and issues for supporting heterogeneous networks should be considered, especially for resource allocation. In this paper we propose adaptive resources allocation algorithm in order to compensate the propagation delay disparity in LEO satellites coverage. The proposed scheme is an adaptive distance-aware spectrum sharing system. In the MAC layer, it results in a variable access delay on the satellite air interface that aims to maintain the end to end delay under the QoS threshold. Analytical Markov model was proposed, for a burst oriented access scheme in the one hand while simulation tests were done for packet oriented access scheme on the other hand; both of them were done for telephony application in heterogeneous 3G/4G networks.