Two new media access control schemes for networked satellite communications

This paper introduces a pair of new media access control (MAC) protocols for a broadcast satellite network. Specifically, it has been designed to utilize the available bandwidth efficiently over a single channel satellite environment. The protocol enables more efficient use of the bandwidth during low loading periods and a more equitable distribution of the bandwidth during high loading periods. Determination of access and management of the bandwidth is decentralized; therefore, each terminal can independently determine and schedule bandwidth, which eliminates a single point of failure inherent to a centrally controlled network. In addition, the decentralized approach reduces setup delay for reserving bandwidth and thus helps to minimize the required satellite resources. This paper describes the operating environment, the MAC protocols, conduct of the modeling and simulation that emulates the network and results of the simulation analysis. A comparison is also made with a simulation model of a time division multiple access (TDMA) network and the theoretical ALOHA and slotted ALOHA throughputs. Observations are made on the simulation results of the protocol performance along with recommendations.