Spread-slotted ALOHA throughput in nonuniform traffic situation for LEO satellite communication systems

An analytical framework to study the nonuniformity in geographical distribution of the traffic load in low Earth-orbital satellite communication systems is presented. In these systems, because of their small coverage area compared with conventional geostationary satellites, the nonuniformity of the traffic affects the performance of the system considerably. The throughput characteristics of a system with direct-sequence packet spread-slotted ALOHA multiple-access technique are evaluated and it is shown that that the traffic nonuniformity makes the characteristics of the system significantly different from the results of the uniform traffic case and that the performance of each user varies according to the location. Moreover, the interference from the users of adjacent satellites is shown to be one of the main factors that limits the performance of system