Satellite communication protocols-a performance comparison considering on-board processing

A comparison is made of error control techniques for digital satellite communication by both analytical methods and simulations. Throughput and delays are studied as functions of the satellite channel bit error rate. Advantages of onboard processing (OBP) offered by future satellite systems are taken into consideration. It is shown that performance of link layer protocols on satellite links can be improved significantly applying OBP. Furthermore, the flexibility of OBP satellites allows protocols, transmission rates, and transmission power to be chosen separately on uplink and downlink, so that the specific conditions can be taken into account