Resource Allocation in Ka-band Satellite Systems

Abstract

The Ka-band satellite system is of increasing interest around the world due to its huge bandwidth. Rain fading is one of the primary factors affecting performance and availability of the Ka-band system. Extra power on the satellite can provide compensation for rain attenuation. <p>In this thesis, we study the rain fade compensation problem for downlink transmission in the Ka-band satellite by dynamic resource allocation. The resources we consider include power and antennas onboard the satellite. The goal is to maximize the aggregate priority of packets arriving at all downlink spots as well as maintain fairness among downlinks. <p>We formulate the problem mathematically in the framework of Knapsack Problems (KP). Inparticular, we show the resource allocation problem is equivalent to a Multi-choice Multiple Knapsack Problem (MCMKP), which, in general, is very hard to solvein a reasonable time. <p>By introducing the seeding theory into the antenna scheduling, we decompose the original MCMCP into a sequence of Multiple-choice Knapsack Problems (MCKP), which are easier to solve.<p> The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated through simulations in OPNET. Comparison with the Multiple Knapsack Problem (MKP) approach proposed by Birmani is also provided.