Adaptive bit rate scheme for a LEO satellite link

The paper aims to investigate the advantages of using adaptive bit rate in the communication link of a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite. While doing the study, it is assumed that there is a communication subsystem on-board responsible for gathering the information sent by a number of ground data collection platforms. The subsystem which operates based on Store-And-Forward (SAF) scenario, contains two communication links, one for receiving data from ground platforms (Store case), and the other for forwarding the stored data to an Earth station (Forward case). In fact, the current work aims to improve the volume of the data forwarded to Earth station. To this end, the Forward case bit rate is varied adaptively, and then by analyzing the power budget in a practical condition, the improvement achieved is evaluated. The results specifically obtained for a sample (data collecting) LEO satellite shows that utilizing adaptive bit rate instead of fixed bit rate can increase the daily data exchange up to about 100%. Although the scheme is only applied to a data collecting LEO satellite link, it still maintains its own generality.